$FUNCNAME$
  LEFT()
$CATEGORY$
  STRING
$SUMMARY$
   Extract a substring beginning with the first character in a string
$LANG_RU$
    ,      .
$SYNTAX$
     LEFT(<cString>, <nCount>) --> cSubString
$LANG_RU$
     LEFT( < >, < >) -->  
$ARGUMENTS$
     <cString> is a character string from which to extract characters.
     The maximum size of <cString> is 65,535 (64K) bytes.
     <nCount> is the number of characters to extract.
$LANG_RU$
     < > -  ,   
     .     - 65535 ( 64 ) .
     < > -   .
$RETURNS$
     LEFT() returns the leftmost <nCount> characters of <cString> as a
     character string.  If <nCount> is negative or zero, LEFT() returns a
     null string ("").  If <nCount> is larger than the length of the
     character string, LEFT() returns the entire string.
$LANG_RU$
     LEFT()    ,    
      ,    .    <
     >-   , LEFT()   
     ("").    < >   
     , LEFT()   .
$DESCRIPTION$

     LEFT() is a character function that returns a substring of a specified
     character string.  It is the same as SUBSTR(<cString>, 1, <nCount>).
     LEFT() is also like RIGHT(), which returns a substring beginning with
     the last character in a string.

     LEFT(), RIGHT(), and SUBSTR() are often used with both the AT() and
     RAT() functions to locate the first and/or the last position of a
     substring before extracting it.


$LANG_RU$

     LEFT()     , 
      ,     . 
       SUBSTR(< >, 1, < >).
     LEFT()   RIGHT(),   ,  
        .

     LEFT(), RIGHT()  SUBSTR()     
     AT()  RAT()    /   
         .


$EXAMPLES$

       This example extracts the first three characters from the left
	of the target string:

	? LEFT("ABCDEF", 3)                  // Result: ABC

       This example extracts a substring from the beginning of a
	string up to the first occurrence of a comma:

	LOCAL cName := "James, William"
	? LEFT(cName, AT(",", cName) - 1)   // Result: James


$LANG_RU$

               :


       ? LEFT("ABCDEF", 3)                   // : ABC

               
       :

       LOCAL cName := "James, William"
       ? LEFT(cName, AT(",", cName) - 1)     // : James


$SEEALSO$
  AT(),LTRIM(),RAT(),RIGHT(),RTRIM(),STUFF(),SUBSTR()
$END$
