leftstr(X;Y)

Returns a string consisting of the first number of characters of a given string, or all but the last number of characters of a given string. (Available as of version 16.09)

Syntax

leftstr(X;Y)

Input

Argument Type Description
X text The string on which to apply the function

A scalar value or the name of a column

Y integer For positive values of Y, the number of characters to extract from X, starting with the first character. For negative values of Y, extract all but the last Y characters.

Return Value

For positive values of Y, returns a text string comprised of the first Y characters of X.

For negative values of Y, returns a text string comprised of all but the last Y characters of Y

Sample Usage

value number leftstr(value;number)
'banana' 3 'ban'
'banana' -4 'ba'
'banana' 2 'ba'
'banana' -2 'bana'

Example

In the "Product Master" table (pub.demo.retail.prod), you can extract the substrings consisting of the first three characters of the department descriptions. To do this, create a computed column and apply the leftstr(X;Y) function to the deptdesc column.

<base table="pub.demo.retail.prod"/>
<willbe name="example" value="leftstr(deptdesc;3)"/>
<colord cols="deptdesc,example"/>

The results are the first three characters of the values in the deptdesc column.

Additional Information

leftstr(X;Y) is similar to first(X;Y), with the exception that it can handle negative Y arguments. leftstr(X;Y) may be more convenient for certain applications, such as when porting code from other languages.