SQL: Is there a way to get the average number of characters for a field?

Is there a simple sql query that can help me to determine the average number of characters that a (text) database field has?

For instance my field is called "message". Id开发者_开发百科eally I would love to do something like this...

select average(characterlength(message)) from mydatabasetable

is this even possible through sql?

Thanks!

Edit

Original bad phrasing: In SQL Server, LEN is for varchar fields. For Text fields, try DATALENGTH

Correction because @gbn is right: LEN will not work with Text or NText datatypes. For TEXT, try Datalength.

End Edit

SELECT AVG(DATALENGTH(yourtextfield)) AS TEXTFieldSize

Edit - added

The above is for the TEXT datatype. For NTEXT, divide by 2.

select avg(length(fieldname)) from table

Though the answer could potentially differ depending on your RDBMS.

For MySQL:

SELECT AVG(CHAR_LENGTH(<column>)) AS avgLength FROM <table>

Retrieved from:

http://forums.devshed.com/database-management-46/average-length-field-38905.html

select avg(length(textfield)) from mytable;

Yes, it is possible. In SqlServer for example it would be:

SELECT AVG(LEN(Name)) FROM MyTable

select sum(len(theTextColumn)) / count(*) from theTable;