LTRIM

Syntax

Description of the illustration ltrim.gif

Purpose

LTRIM removes from the left end of char all of the characters contained in set. If you do not specify set, it defaults to a single blank. If char is a character literal, then you must enclose it in single quotes. Oracle Database begins scanning char from its first character and removes all characters that appear in set until reaching a character not in set and then returns the result.

Both char and set can be any of the datatypes CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The string returned is of VARCHAR2 datatype if char is a character datatype and a LOB if char is a LOB datatype.

Examples

The following example trims the redundant first word from a group of product names in the oe.products table:

SELECT product_name, LTRIM(product_name, 'Monitor ') "Short Name"
   FROM products
   WHERE product_name LIKE 'Monitor%';

PRODUCT_NAME         Short Name
-------------------- ---------------
Monitor 17/HR        17/HR
Monitor 17/HR/F      17/HR/F
Monitor 17/SD        17/SD
Monitor 19/SD        19/SD
Monitor 19/SD/M      19/SD/M
Monitor 21/D         21/D
Monitor 21/HR        21/HR
Monitor 21/HR/M      21/HR/M
Monitor 21/SD        21/SD
Monitor Hinge - HD   Hinge - HD
Monitor Hinge - STD  Hinge - STD