Purpose:

Reduces a string from the right so that only the number of characters set under Number remain. If the original string is already small enough, it is not affected.

Parameter:

String             The value to be shortened

Number            maximum number of positions of the result

Boolean       (optional) True: The cut off value is ended with "..." (Default: False). With numbers < 3 the setting is ignored.

Return value:

String

Examples:

If you had a customer database that contains, amongst other things, the field NAME for the surname. You now wish to search for all customers whose surname starts with "C". To do this, you must first identify the starting letters.

Left$(NAME, 1)                   Result: the first letter of the NAME string.

Left$("combit", 2)                Result: "co"

Left$("combit", 4,True)         Result: "c…"

Left$("combit", 2, True)        Result: "co"