The LENGTH() function

Informix^® provides the LENGTH() function:

SELECT LENGTH("aaa"), LENGTH(col1) FROM table

IBM^® DB2^® has a equivalent function with the same name, but there is some difference:

Informix does not count the trailing blanks neither for CHAR not for VARCHAR expressions, while IBM DB2 counts the trailing blanks.
With the IBM DB2 LENGTH function, when using a CHAR column, values are always blank padded, so the function returns the size of the CHAR column. When using a VARCHAR column, trailing blanks are significant, and the function returns the number of characters, including trailing blanks.

Solution

You must check if the trailing blanks are significant when using the LENGTH()function.

If you want to count the number of characters by ignoring the trailing blanks, you must use the RTRIM() function:

SELECT LENGTH(RTRIM(col1)) FROM table