LTRIM

Syntax

Description of the illustration ltrim.eps

Purpose

LTRIM removes from the left end of char all of the characters contained in set. If you do not specify set, then it defaults to a single blank. 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 data types CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The string returned is of VARCHAR2 data type if char is a character data type, NVARCHAR2 if char is a national character data type, and a LOB if char is a LOB data type.

See Also:

• RTRIM

• Appendix C in Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for the collation determination rules, which define the collation LTRIM uses to compare characters from set with characters from char, and for the collation derivation rules, which define the collation assigned to the character return value of this function

Examples

The following example trims all the left-most occurrences of less than sign (<), greater than sign (>) , and equal sign (=) from a string:

SELECT LTRIM('<=====>BROWNING<=====>', '<>=') "LTRIM Example"
  FROM DUAL;

LTRIM Example
---------------
BROWNING<=====>