github.com/rstandt/terraform@v0.12.32-0.20230710220336-b1063613405c/website/docs/configuration/functions/length.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "functions" 3 page_title: "length - Functions - Configuration Language" 4 sidebar_current: "docs-funcs-collection-length" 5 description: |- 6 The length function determines the length of a collection or string. 7 --- 8 9 # `length` Function 10 11 -> **Note:** This page is about Terraform 0.12 and later. For Terraform 0.11 and 12 earlier, see 13 [0.11 Configuration Language: Interpolation Syntax](../../configuration-0-11/interpolation.html). 14 15 `length` determines the length of a given list, map, or string. 16 17 If given a list or map, the result is the number of elements in that collection. 18 If given a string, the result is the number of characters in the string. 19 20 ## Examples 21 22 ``` 23 > length([]) 24 0 25 > length(["a", "b"]) 26 2 27 > length({"a" = "b"}) 28 1 29 > length("hello") 30 5 31 ``` 32 33 When given a string, the result is the number of characters, rather than the 34 number of bytes or Unicode sequences that form them: 35 36 ``` 37 > length("👾🕹️") 38 2 39 ``` 40 41 A "character" is a _grapheme cluster_, as defined by 42 [Unicode Standard Annex #29](http://unicode.org/reports/tr29/). Note that 43 remote APIs may have a different definition of "character" for the purpose of 44 length limits on string arguments; a Terraform provider is responsible for 45 translating Terraform's string representation into that used by its respective 46 remote system and applying any additional validation rules to it.