On 3 Nov 2006 02:45:44 -0800, othellomy@yahoo.com wrote:

>Microsoft Doc incorrectly says:
>"LEFT ( character_expression , integer_expression )
>integer_expression
>Is a positive whole number. If integer_expression is negative, a null
>string is returned."

>Is there an easier solutoin using left or any other string function
>instead of using a case statement?
>Also, charindex('/','Hello World Ok') should return NULL instead 0 so
>that we can use isnull function.

Hugo Kornelis wrote:
> On 3 Nov 2006 02:45:44 -0800, othellomy@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> (snip)
> >Microsoft Doc incorrectly says:
> >"LEFT ( character_expression , integer_expression )
> >integer_expression
> >Is a positive whole number. If integer_expression is negative, a null
> >string is returned."
>
> Hi othellomy,
>
> Your copy of Books Online must be outdated, then. Here's what my version
> says:
>
> "integer_expression
>
> "Is a positive integer that specifies how many characters of the
> character_expression will be returned. If integer_expression is
> negative, an error is returned. integer_expression can be of
> type bigint."
>
> >Is there an easier solutoin using left or any other string function
> >instead of using a case statement?
> >Also, charindex('/','Hello World Ok') should return NULL instead 0 so
> >that we can use isnull function.
>
> You can use NULLIF to change the 0 to NULL yourself:
>
> SELECT LEFT ('Hello World Ok',
> NULLIF (CHARINDEX('/','Hello World Ok'), 0) - 1);
>
> --
> Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP