| Operator Type: | Function |
| Operator Scope of Action: | Item |
| Operator Purpose: | Data manipulation |
String.substr(startN][lengthN])
New to v5.7.0, this operator allows extraction of a substring from a string attribute. The source string is not affected.
$MyString.substr(startN)
returns the substring of $MyString beginning startN characters from the beginning. The numbers for startN and lengthN are 0-based. i.e. zero is character position #1. From v5.10.2 a negative startN value counts back from the end of the string .Negative values are 1-based, i.e. the -1 represents the last character in the string.
In the examples below assume $MyString's value is "Hello World". Examples:
"abcde".substr(2) returns "cde"
"abcde".substr(-2) returns "de"
$MyString.substr(6) returns "World"
If the string does not contain at least startN characters, the empty string is returned.
A second argument lengthN specifies the length of the returned string. If unspecified, the entire remaining string is returned.
"abcde".substr(2,2) returns "cd"
"abcde".substr(-3,2) returns "cd"
$MyString.substr(0,5) returns "Hello"
Besides strings and string literals, this operator can also be used on other attribute data types that are string-like, URL, File, etc. Although the operator also works on lists/sets, the source data is all the values as a single semi-colon-joined string literal so there is less point in its use in this context.
