# std::basic_string<CharT,Traits,Allocator>::size, std::basic_string<CharT,Traits,Allocator>::length

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< cpp‎ | string‎ | basic string

size_type size() const; |  | (until C++11)
size_type size() const noexcept; |  | (since C++11)
size_type length() const; |  | (until C++11)
size_type length() const noexcept; |  | (since C++11)

Returns the number of `CharT` elements in the string, i.e. std::distance(begin(), end()).

### Parameters

(none)

### Return value

The number of `CharT` elements in the string.

### Complexity

Unspecified | (until C++11)
Constant | (since C++11)

### Notes

For std::string, the elements are bytes (objects of type char), which are not the same as characters if a multibyte encoding such as UTF-8 is used.

### Example

Run this code

    #include <cassert>
    #include <iterator>
    #include <string>

    int main()
    {
        std::string s("Exemplar");
        assert(8 == s.size());
        assert(s.size() == s.length());
        assert(s.size() == static_cast<std::string::size_type>(
            std::distance(s.begin(), s.end())));

        std::u32string a(U"ハロー・ワールド"); // 8 code points
        assert(8 == a.size()); // 8 code units in UTF-32

        std::u16string b(u"ハロー・ワールド"); // 8 code points
        assert(8 == b.size()); // 8 code units in UTF-16

        std::string c(u8"ハロー・ワールド"); // 8 code points
        assert(24 == c.size()); // 24 code units in UTF-8
    }

### See also

empty | checks whether the string is empty (public member function)
max_size | returns the maximum number of characters (public member function)

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