The perlfunc manpage has a listing of categorized built-in functions which can be very helpful when one is just learning the language. The following should allow you to read it on your own system (if perl was properly installed):

    perldoc perlfunc
[download]

Looking in the category for 'scalars and strings' we see a length function. Use perldoc again to see if that will do what desire:

    perldoc -f length
[download]