I was speaking in terms of keyboard usage. In terms of anal grammatical correctness, a hyphen is shorter than a dash and is used to join compound-words and separate syl-la-bles of a single word. That distinction has disappeared with the advent of typewriters, however, because no one wants to use "-" for a hyphen, "--" for a minus sign, "---" for a regular dash, "----" for a decrement operator, "-----" for an en dash, "------" for an em dash, "-------" for a horizontal bar, "--------" for a double decrement operator, and so on.