left

Returns the leftmost len(len can be string type) characters from the string str, if len is less or equal than 0 the result is an empty string.

For the corresponding Databricks SQL function, see left function.

Syntax

from pyspark.databricks.sql import functions as dbf

dbf.left(str=<str>, len=<len>)

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
str	pyspark.sql.Column or str	Input column or strings.
len	pyspark.sql.Column or str	Input column or strings, the leftmost len. Examples -------- >>> df = spark.createDataFrame([("Spark SQL", 3,)], ['a', 'b']) >>> df.select(left(df.a, df.b).alias('r')).collect() [Row(r='Spa')]

Examples

df = spark.createDataFrame([("Spark SQL", 3,)], ['a', 'b'])
df.select(left(df.a, df.b).alias('r')).collect()