display characters to the left of colon 1

[mgason]

Hi,
I have a database field that has a long string with colons at various irregular points.
I wish to display only the characters to the left of the first colon.
This is not conveniently at the same number of characters.
How can I do this?

Also can I group by that formula?

Thanks
Mark Gason

 

[lbass]

You can group on the following formula:

left({table.string},instr({table.string},":")-1)

-LB

 

[mgason]

Thanks
that works great. I now need to protect against some bad entries by the users.
If the string has no colon I want to display and group by the complete string.
mark

 

[lbass]

if instr({table.string},":") <> 0 then
left({table.string},instr({table.string},":")-1) else
{table.string}

-LB

 

[mgason]

Thanks,
it works perfectly
Mark