Access: Left Function

In Access, the Left function extracts a substring from a string, starting from the left-most character.

The syntax for the Left function is:

Left ( text, number_of_characters )

Text is the string that you wish to extract from.

Number_of_characters indicates the number of characters that you wish to extract starting from the left-most character.

Note:

If number_of_characters exceeds the number of characters in text, the Left function will return text.

For example:

Left ("Tech on the Net", 4) would return "Tech"

Left ("Alphabet Soup", 5) would return "Alpha"

Left ("Alphabet", 20) would return "Alphabet"

VBA Code

The Left function can be used in VBA code. For example:

Dim LResult As String

LResult = Left ("Alphabet",3)

The variable LResult would now contain the value of "Alp".

You can also use the Left function in a query.