Hi Eric,

LEN function removes spaces at the end.

BOL:
Returns the number of characters, instead of the number of bytes, of the specified string expression, excluding trailing blanks.

You may want to use DATALENGTH() function instead to get the size of the variable in bytes.

>Consider this short query
>
>

>DECLARE @x VARCHAR(20)
>
>SET @x = '1234567890'
>SELECT '-' + @x + '-', LEN(@x), RIGHT(@x, LEN(@x) - 2), RIGHT(RTRIM(@x), LEN(@x) - 2)
>
>SET @x = '1234567890 '
>SELECT '-' + @x + '-', LEN(@x), RIGHT(@x, LEN(@x) - 2), RIGHT(RTRIM(@x), LEN(@x) - 2)
>

>
>Executing this short query gives us this result.
>
>

>---------------------- ----------- -------------------- --------------------
>-1234567890-           10          34567890             34567890
>
>(1 row(s) affected)
>
>
>---------------------- ----------- -------------------- --------------------
>-1234567890 -          10          4567890              34567890
>
>(1 row(s) affected)
>

>
>The second value of @x has a space at the end. Do you see what the LEN function returns in both cases? Do you also see the "interesting" side-effect to the RIGHT function when used with LEN?
>
>That caused me a problem this morning. I wanted to share it with you. If you have any comments, please shoot!