left

Returns the leftmost count characters in a string.

left(String, count) → returns string

Member Function Syntax

string.left(count)

Argument Reference

String string
Required

count numeric
Required

Examples
Sample code invoking the left function

In this example we'll use left() to return part of a string.

writeOutput( left( 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog', 19 ) );

Expected Result: The quick brown fox

In this example we'll use left() in a function to help us to capitalize the first letter in a string.

public string function capitalize( required string text ) {
	return uCase( left( arguments.text, 1 ) ) & right( arguments.text, len( arguments.text ) - 1 );
}

In this example we'll use left() to test the first five characters of a request context variable.

if( listFindNoCase( 'super,great,coder,rulez', left( rc.answer, 5 ) ) ) {
	writeOutput( 'You are an awesome developer!' );
}

CF 11+ Lucee 4.5+ In this example we'll use left() as a member function inside a function to help us to capitalize the first letter in a string.

public string function capitalize( required string text ) {
	return arguments.text.left( 1 ).ucase() & arguments.text.right( arguments.text.len() - 1 );
}

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