left

Returns a specified number of characters on the left end of a character string.

Syntax

left(character_expression, integer_expression)

Parameters

character_expression – is the character string from which the characters on the left are selected.
integer_expression – is the positive integer that specifies the number of characters returned. An error is returned if integer_expression is negative.

Examples

Example 1 – Returns the five leftmost characters of each book title:

use pubs
select left(title, 5) from titles
order by title_id

----- 
The B 
Cooki 
You C 
..... 
Sushi 

(18 row(s) affected)

Example 2 – Returns the two leftmost characters of the character string “abcdef”:
```
select left("abcdef", 2)
---------
ab
(1 row(s) affected)
```

Usage

character_expression can be of any datatype (except text or image) that can be implicitly converted to varchar or nvarchar. character_expression can be a constant, variable, or a column name. You can explicitly convert character_expression using convert.
left is equivalent to substring(character_expression, 1, integer_expression).

Standards

ANSI SQL – Compliance level: Transact-SQL extension.

Permissions

Any user can execute left.

Parent topic: Transact-SQL Functions

Related concepts

Transact-SQL Functions

Related reference

Created May 28, 2014. Send feedback on this help topic to Technical Publications: pubs@sap.com