Returning the leftmost character using SQL in excel

[darrenfinlayson]

Good morning / afternoon / evening whereever you are!

i am pulling data from lotus notes into excel using:

import external data / new database query

i have got the results tweaked exactly how i want them to be but 1 thing. i would like to tell query to only return the leftmost character to excel, of a field that i am importing from notes. is this possible?

i have worked with criteria, and i can display data were the leftmost character = x but i cant seem to return x. i know you can use the formula =left(a1, 1) withing excel but this would then need to be in another column right?

thanks for listening, have a nice day!

 

[anvil19]

Hey Darren

You could write your SQL statement in such a way that the system returns just the Left() portion of a WHERE statement filter, like so...

SELECT Left([Name],1) From Table1 WHERE Name LIKE 'x*'

That way you will only get the leftmost letter/Number from the name where the entire name matches your WHERE statement, in this case all records that start with x.


Try that

anvil19


P.S. I am not familiar with Lotus Notes, so excuse me if you don't use SQL to run queries.