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31<helpdocument version="1.0">
32<meta>
33<topic id="textsbasicshared03120303xml" indexer="include" status="PUBLISH">
34<title id="tit" xml-lang="en-US">Left Function [Runtime]</title>
35<filename>/text/sbasic/shared/03120303.xhp</filename>
36</topic>
37<history>
38<created date="2003-10-31T00:00:00">Sun Microsystems, Inc.</created>
39<lastedited date="2004-09-21T11:53:55">converted from old format - fpe</lastedited>
40</history>
41</meta>
42<body>
43<section id="left">
44<bookmark xml-lang="en-US" branch="index" id="bm_id3149346"><bookmark_value>Left function</bookmark_value>
45</bookmark>
46<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>
47<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>
48</section>
49<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3156153" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="3">Syntax:</paragraph>
50<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150771" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="CHG" oldref="4">Left (Text As String, n As Long)</paragraph>
51<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3153824" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="5">Return value:</paragraph>
52<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3147530" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="6">String</paragraph>
53<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3148946" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="7">Parameters:</paragraph>
54<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3148552" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="8">
55<emph>Text:</emph> Any string expression that you want to return the leftmost characters from.</paragraph>
56<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3149456" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="CHG" oldref="9">
57<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>
58<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>
59<embed href="text/sbasic/shared/00000003.xhp#errorcode"/>
60<embed href="text/sbasic/shared/00000003.xhp#err5"/>
61<paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3125863" xml-lang="en-US" level="2" l10n="U" oldref="11">Example:</paragraph>
62<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3144761" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="12">Sub ExampleUSDate</paragraph>
63<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153194" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="13">Dim sInput As String</paragraph>
64<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3154217" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="14">Dim sUS_date As String</paragraph>
65<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>
66<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3149203" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="16">sUS_date = Mid(sInput, 6, 2)</paragraph>
67<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150439" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="17">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; "/"</paragraph>
68<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153770" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="18">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; Right(sInput, 2)</paragraph>
69<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3161833" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="19">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; "/"</paragraph>
70<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3147215" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="20">sUS_date = sUS_date &amp; Left(sInput, 4)</paragraph>
71<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3149666" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="21">MsgBox sUS_date</paragraph>
72<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153138" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="U" oldref="22">End Sub</paragraph>
73</body>
74</helpdocument>
75