Left$

[Ace]

Hi Everyone,

Is there any such thing as a left$. I want to capture the first 3 letters of a name but I cannot get the VB program to recognize the Left$ procedure. For example, I want this.

Name = Inventory

strFile = Left$(" & Text1.Text & ", 3)

New Name = Inv

[crptcblade]

strFile = Left$(Text1.Text, 3)

[EZapps]

Try this:
Dim strFile as String
strFile = Left(" " & Text1.Text & " ", 3)

[HeSaidJoe]

If you are lazy like me you can save 3 key presses

strFile = Left$(Text1, 3)

[crptcblade]

BTW...

The reason Left$ does not come up with Intellisense is because it sees Left as the Left property for your form. Try it in a module and it works

[Ace]

Thanks for your reply crptcblade. It still doesn't recognize it though. When I type Left$ and hit the "(" sign, nothing even recognizes that it is doing a left string function. When I try a Right$( I receive a tooltip that says Right$(String As String, Length As Long) As String. Any ideas what may be wrong?

[crptcblade]

funny, not even in a bas module? Hmmm...It works for me

[HeSaidJoe]

Works for me..

Private Sub Command1_Click()
  MsgBox Left$(Text1, 3)
End Sub

[Matthew Gates]

You can also use the Mid function.

strFile = Mid$(Text1.Text, 1, 3)
MsgBox strFile

[EZapps]

One thing that brings an element of confusion to me, not speaking
for others, is this:

VB can create variables on the fly. This is not necessarily a good thing. In real practice, I believe in declaring all variables, i.e., Dim strFile as String.

Afterwords, call the "Left" function as I've illustrated above. It
should work OK.

Redundancy is exposed in the code: strFile = Left$(whatever, how many)

Declare the variable and call the function as intended:
Dim MyString as String
MyString = Left(SomeString, NumberOfPlacesFromTheLeft)

[sunburnt]

Actually, I've noticed this before too. While the Left() function works, it does not display the arguments in a tooltip, whereas the Right and Mid functions do. {VB6 SP5}

[crptcblade]

Originally posted by crptcblade
BTW...

The reason Left$ does not come up with Intellisense is because it sees Left as the Left property for your form. Try it in a module and it works

here's the reason. You can reference properties/methods of a form without using the form name while your are in that form's code module. Like :

'in a form module
Left = Top - 20

is the same as :

'in a form module
Me.Left = Me.Top - 20

again, use the Left() function in a bas module and you'll see the tooltip

[Ace]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your advice. I can get the Left$ function to work inside of the bas module and inside of the MsgBox ok, but this is what I am really trying to do. I have inserted the ImgScan.ocx control on my form and have developed some scanner code to work with it. I am trying to save the image as a bitmap file to the following location. I want to save the file with the first 3 letters of the name in Text2.Text plus have the current date at the end. For example, if the name in Text2.Text was INVENTORY. The file would be saved as INV6/6/01.bmp. Make sense? I can get the Left$ function to work ok but I receive a bad file name error when I try to add the date on the end. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

"C:\Scanner Test\Folder1\" & Left$(Text2.Text, 3) & Date & ""

[Matthew Gates]

Originally posted by Ace

"C:\Scanner Test\Folder1\" & Left$(Text2.Text, 3) & Date & ""

Just lettin' you know, you don't need the last three characters .

"C:\Scanner Test\Folder1\" & Left$(Text2.Text, 3) & Date

[crptcblade]

I know exactly what is wrong. You cannot have a filename with these characters in it : \ / : * ? > < " |

try using Replace() to switch the "/" with a valid character.