CHARACTERS

CHARACTERS(g;c) returns a variate giving the length of each line of the text t; if c is omitted or set to 0 the length is the “raw” length (with no checking for any typesetting commands), if c = 1 it is the formatted length (taking account of typesetting commands; see 1.4.2 for their syntax); finally, if c = -1 it is the number of storage units (“bytes”) required to store the text (standard characters like letters and digits require only one, more complicated characters like Chinese or Thai characters may require as many as four).