1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2
3
4<!--***********************************************************
5 *
6 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
7 * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
8 * distributed with this work for additional information
9 * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
10 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
11 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
12 * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
13 *
14 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
15 *
16 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
17 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
18 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
19 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
20 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
21 * under the License.
22 *
23 ***********************************************************-->
24
25
26
27<helpdocument version="1.0">
28<meta>
29<topic id="textsbasicshared03120303xml" indexer="include" status="PUBLISH">
30<title id="tit" xml-lang="en-US">Left Function [Runtime]</title>
31<filename>/text/sbasic/shared/03120303.xhp</filename>
32</topic>
33<history>
34<created date="2003-10-31T00:00:00">Sun Microsystems, Inc.</created>
35<lastedited date="2004-09-21T11:53:55">converted from old format - fpe</lastedited>
36</history>
37</meta>
38<body>
39<section id="left">
40<bookmark xml-lang="en-US" branch="index" id="bm_id3149346"><bookmark_value>Left function</bookmark_value>
41</bookmark>
42<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3149346" xml-lang="en-US" level="1" l10n="U" oldref="1"><link href="text/sbasic/shared/03120303.xhp" name="Left Function [Runtime]">Left Function [Runtime]</link></paragraph>
43<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3147242" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="2">Returns the number of leftmost characters that you specify of a string expression.</paragraph>
44</section>
45<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3156153" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="3">Syntax:</paragraph>
46<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150771" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="CHG" oldref="4">Left (Text As String, n As Long)</paragraph>
47<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3153824" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="5">Return value:</paragraph>
48<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3147530" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="6">String</paragraph>
49<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3148946" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="7">Parameters:</paragraph>
50<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3148552" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="8">
51<emph>Text:</emph> Any string expression that you want to return the leftmost characters from.</paragraph>
52<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3149456" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="CHG" oldref="9">
53<emph>n:</emph> Numeric expression that specifies the number of characters that you want to return. If <emph>n</emph> = 0, a zero-length string is returned. The maximum allowed value is 65535.</paragraph>
54<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150791" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="10">The following example converts a date in YYYY.MM.DD format to MM/DD/YYYY format.</paragraph>
55<embed href="text/sbasic/shared/00000003.xhp#errorcode"/>
56<embed href="text/sbasic/shared/00000003.xhp#err5"/>
57<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3125863" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="11">Example:</paragraph>
58<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3144761" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="12">Sub ExampleUSDate</paragraph>
59<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153194" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="13">Dim sInput As String</paragraph>
60<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3154217" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="14">Dim sUS_date As String</paragraph>
61<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150448" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="15">sInput = InputBox("Please input a date in the international format 'YYYY-MM-DD'")</paragraph>
62<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3149203" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="16">sUS_date = Mid(sInput, 6, 2)</paragraph>
63<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150439" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="17">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; "/"</paragraph>
64<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153770" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="18">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; Right(sInput, 2)</paragraph>
65<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3161833" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="19">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; "/"</paragraph>
66<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3147215" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="20">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; Left(sInput, 4)</paragraph>
67<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3149666" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="21">MsgBox sUS_date</paragraph>
68<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153138" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="22">End Sub</paragraph>
69</body>
70</helpdocument>
71