Use &SYSCLENGTH built-in function to determine the number of characters in an expression or string that contains characters of the double-byte character set (DBCS). &SYSCLENGTH differs from &LENGTH in that &SYSCLENGTH counts each DBCS character as one character instead of two bytes, and does not count DBCS delimiters. For example:

SET A = &SYSCLENGTH(<d1d2>)    /* result: &A = 2

The same is true when a string contains mixed EBCDIC and DBCS characters. For example:

SET A = &SYSCLENGTH(ABC<d1d2>)    /* result: &A = 5

Except for the difference in counting DBCS characters, &SYSCLENGTH is identical to &LENGTH.