quick question

[ayahnabunda]

how to check a length of a given string.

I put the following sentence into buffer1
"Hi there."

I wanna know the length of that string. how would I do that?

Thanks a lot.

EDIT: I use PCSpim (if it even matter)

[ayahnabunda]

here is the code what I have so far. It didn't print the correct result. i need to put a termination charachter at the end of the string. I tried to but failed.
can anybody help me out?

.data
     
     prompt:    
                 .asciiz "Please enter a line of text:\n"
     name  : 
		 .asciiz "whata:  "
     input :
		.asciiz "WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW"
     output:
		.asciiz "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ\n"
     nl:         
		.asciiz "\n"


            .text
            .globl main
main:
	    li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, input
            syscall  	#cout << input;

	    li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, output
	    syscall	#cout << output;

	    li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, name
	    syscall	#cout << name;

	    la $a0, prompt    # Starting address of string.
	    li $v0, 4
	    syscall

            la $a0, input       #input      # Starting address of buffer.
            li $a1, 42        # Length of buffer.
	    li $v0, 8
            syscall

	    li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, input
            syscall  	#cout << input;

	    li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, output
	    syscall	#cout << output;
	   
	     li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, input
            syscall  	#cout << input;

                              # Now, let's reverse the string.

            la $s0, output     # $s0 points to beginning of line.

            la $s1, input     # So does $s1, for now.

                              # We want $s1 pointing to the '\n' at the
                              # end of the line.
while1:                       
            lb $t0, 0($s1)
            beq $t0, 10, while2
            addi $s1, $s1, 1
            b while1
	
while2:
            addi $s1, $s1, -1 # Now, $s1 points to the last character
                              # of the line.

                              # Ok, $s0 points to the beginning of the
                              # line and $s1 points to the end.  Start
                              # swapping characters to reverse the string.
while3:
            beq $t1, 10, while4
            lb $t0, 0($s0)
            lb $t1, 0($s1)
            sb $t0, 0($s1)
            sb $t1, 0($s0)
            addi $s0, $s0, 1
            addi $s1, $s1, -1
            b while3
while4:
            lb $t0, 0($s0)                  
            sb $t0, 10
                                                # Print the reversed string.
	    li $v0,4
	    la $a0, nl
            syscall

	    li $v0,4
	    la $a0, output
            syscall

	    li $v0,4
	    la $a0, input
            syscall

	    li $v0,4
	    la $a0, nl
            syscall

	    li $v0,4
	    la $a0, output
            syscall

 	    li $v0, 4
	    la $a0, name
	    syscall	#cout << name;

                              # Return to startup code.
            li $v0, 0         # Return value is zero.
            jr $ra