LEFT$
The LEFT$ string function returns a number of characters from the left of a STRING.
Syntax
- LEFT$(stringValue$, numberOfCharacters%)
Parameters
- stringValue$ can be any STRING literal or variable.
- numberOfCharacters% INTEGER determines the number of characters to return from left of string.
Description
- If the number of characters exceeds the string length the entire string is returned. Use LEN to determine a string's length.
- LEFT$ returns always start at the first character of the string, even if it's a space. LTRIM$ can remove leading spaces.
- numberOfCharacters% cannot be a negative value.
Examples
Example 1: Getting the left portion of a string value.
name$ = "Tom Williams" First$ = LEFT$(name$, 3) PRINT First$
Tom
Example 2: A replace function using LEFT$ and RIGHT$ with INSTR to insert a different length word into an existing string.
text$ = "This is my sentence to change my words." PRINT text$ oldword$ = "my" newword$ = "your" x = Replace(text$, oldword$, newword$) IF x THEN PRINT text$; x END FUNCTION Replace (text$, old$, new$) 'can also be used as a SUB without the count assignment DO find = INSTR(start + 1, text$, old$) 'find location of a word in text IF find THEN count = count + 1 first$ = LEFT$(text$, find - 1) 'text before word including spaces last$ = RIGHT$(text$, LEN(text$) - (find + LEN(old$) - 1)) 'text after word text$ = first$ + new$ + last$ END IF start = find LOOP WHILE find Replace = count 'function returns the number of replaced words. Comment out in SUB END FUNCTION
This is my sentence to change my words. This is your sentence to change your words.
- Note: The MID$ statement can only substitute words or sections of the original string length. It cannot change the string length.
See also
