length

Function: length
Section: conversions
C-Name: glength
Prototype: lG
Help: length(x): number of non code words in x, number of characters for a
 string.
Description:
 (vecsmall):lg      lg($1)
 (vec):lg           lg($1)
 (pol):small        lgpol($1)
 (gen):small        glength($1)
Doc: length of $x$; \kbd{\#}$x$ is a shortcut for \kbd{length}$(x)$.
 This is mostly useful for

 \item vectors: dimension (0 for empty vectors),

 \item lists: number of entries (0 for empty lists),

 \item maps: number of entries (0 for empty maps),

 \item matrices: number of columns,

 \item character strings: number of actual characters (without
 trailing \kbd{\bs 0}, should you expect it from $C$ \kbd{char*}).
 \bprog
  ? #"a string"
  %1 = 8
  ? #[3,2,1]
  %2 = 3
  ? #[]
  %3 = 0
  ? #matrix(2,5)
  %4 = 5
  ? L = List([1,2,3,4]); #L
  %5 = 4
  ? M = Map([a,b; c,d; e,f]); #M
  %6 = 3
 @eprog

 The routine is in fact defined for arbitrary GP types, but is awkward and
 useless in other cases: it returns the number of non-code words in $x$, e.g.
 the effective length minus 2 for integers since the \typ{INT} type has two code
 words.