LEFTC( ) Function

  • Article

Returns a specified number of characters from a character expression, starting with the leftmost character.

LEFTC(cExpression, nExpression)

Return Values

Character

Parameters

  • cExpression
    Specifies the character expression from which LEFTC( ) returns characters.
  • nExpression
    Specifies the number of characters returned from the character expression. If nExpression is greater than the length of cExpression, all of the character expression is returned. The empty string is returned if nExpression is negative or 0.

Remarks

LEFTC( ) is designed for expressions containing double-byte characters. If the expression contains only single-byte characters, LEFTC( ) is equivalent to LEFT( ).

LEFTC( ) returns a specified number of characters from a character expression containing any combination of single-byte and double-byte characters.

LEFTC( ) is identical to SUBSTRC( ) with a starting position of 1.

This function is useful for manipulating double-byte character sets for languages such as Hiragana and Katakana.

See Also

AT( ) | AT_C( ) | ATC( ) | ATCC( ) | ATCLINE( ) | ATLINE( ) | LEFT( ) | LTRIM( ) | RAT( ) | RATLINE( ) | RIGHT( ) | RTRIM( ) | SUBSTR( ) | RIGHTC( ) | SUBSTRC( )