Available in: DSQL, PSQL
Added in: 2.1
Description
Returns the leftmost part of the argument string. The number of characters is given in the second argument.
Result type: VARCHAR or BLOB
Syntax
LEFT (string, length)
This function fully supports text BLOBs of any length, including those with a multi-byte
character set.
If string is a BLOB, the result is a BLOB. Otherwise, the result is a VARCHAR(n) with n the length of the input string.
If the length argument exceeds the string length, the input string is returned unchanged.
If the length argument is not a whole number, bankers' rounding (round-to-even) is applied, i.e. 0.5 becomes 0, 1.5 becomes 2, 2.5 becomes 2, 3.5 becomes 4, etc.