Left
Returns the leftmost substring of a string
Syntax
`
Declare Function Left ( 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:

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

Platform Differences

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

Dialect Differences

- The string type suffix "$" is required in the -lang qb dialect.
- The string type suffix "$" is optional in the -lang fblite dialect.
- The string type suffix "$" is ignored in the -lang fb dialect, warn only with the -w suffix compile option (or -w pedantic compile option).

Differences from QB

- QB does not support Unicode.

See also

- `Right`
- `Mid (Function)`