Left
 
Returns the leftmost substring of a string

Syntax

Declare Function Left Overload ( ByRef str As Const String, ByVal n As Integer ) As String
Declare Function Left ( ByRef str As Const WString, ByVal n As Integer ) As WString

Usage

result = Left[$]( str, n )

Parameters

str
The source string.
n
The number of characters to return from the source string.

Return Value

Returns the leftmost substring from str.

Description

Returns the leftmost n characters starting from the left (beginning) of str. If str is empty, then the null string ("") is returned. If n <= 0 then the null string ("") is returned. If n > len(str) then the entire source string is returned.

Example

Dim text As String = "hello world"
Print Left(text, 5)

will produce the output:

hello
An Unicode example:
 

Platform Differences

  • DOS does not support the wide-character string version of Left.

Dialect Differences

  • The string type suffix "$" is obligatory in the -lang qb dialect.
  • The string type suffix "$" is optional in the -lang fblite and -lang fb dialects.

Differences from QB

  • QB does not support Unicode.

See also

dim text as wstring*20
text = "Привет, мир!"
print left(text, 6) 'displays "Привет"