Left

Retrieve the first 3 characters from a string.

SELECT Left(“SQL Tutorial”, 3) AS ExtractString;

Definition and Usage

The Left() function extracts a specified number of characters from the beginning of a string.

Note: Also consider using the Right() function for extracting characters from the end of a string.

Left(string, number_of_chars)

Parameter	Description
string	Required. Specifies the string from which characters will be extracted.
number_of_chars	Required. Specifies the number of characters to extract. If this parameter exceeds the length of the string, the function will return the entire string.

Works in:

From Access 2000

Retrieve the first 5 characters from the text in the “CustomerName” column.

SELECT Left(CustomerName, 5) AS ExtractString
FROM Customers;