counting no of characters in a given string in Oracle

We can find no of characters in a string  based on this query in two different ways:
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select NVL(LENGTH(REGEXP_REPLACE(ENAME, '[^A]')),0) REG_COUNT,
       length(ename) - length(replace(ename, 'A')) COUNT,
       ENAME,
       SAL,
       JOB,
       DEPTNO
  FROM SCOTT.EMP;