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 = "&#1055;&#1088;&#1080;&#1074;&#1077;&#1090;, &#1084;&#1080;&#1088;!"
print left(text, 6) 'displays "&#1055;&#1088;&#1080;&#1074;&#1077;&#1090;"

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)

