LTRIM (Transact-SQL)

Returns a character expression after it removes leading blanks.

Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

LTRIM ( character_expression )

Arguments

• character_expression
  Is an expression of character or binary data. character_expression can be a constant, variable, or column. character_expression must be of a data type, except text, ntext, and image, that is implicitly convertible to varchar. Otherwise, use CAST to explicitly convert character_expression.

Return Type

varchar or nvarchar

Remarks

Compatibility levels can affect return values. For more information about compatibility levels, see sp_dbcmptlevel (Transact-SQL).

Examples

The following example uses LTRIM to remove leading spaces from a character variable.

DECLARE @string_to_trim varchar(60)
SET @string_to_trim = '     Five spaces are at the beginning of this
   string.'
SELECT 'Here is the string without the leading spaces: ' + 
   LTRIM(@string_to_trim)
GO

Here is the result set.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the string without the leading spaces: Five spaces are at the beginning of this string.             

(1 row(s) affected)

See Also

Reference

Data Types (Transact-SQL)
String Functions (Transact-SQL)

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance