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<h1>22. Virtuoso Functions Guide - substring</h1>
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<div id="text">
<h2>substring</h2>
<div class="refpurpose">Returns the substring of the first argument starting at the position specified in the second argument with length specified in the third argument.</div>
<div class="funcsynopsis">
<span class="funcdef">string <span class="function">substring</span>
</span>
(<span class="paramdef">
<span class="parameter">strg</span> string</span>,
<span class="paramdef">
<span class="parameter">start</span> integer</span>,
<span class="paramdefoptional">[<span class="optional">length</span> integer]</span>);
</div>
<div class="refsect1">
<div class="refsect1title">Description</div>
<p>
The substring() XPATH function returns the substring of the <span class="computeroutput">strg</span>
starting at the position specified in <span class="computeroutput">start</span> argument with length
specified in <span class="computeroutput">length</span> argument.
If <span class="computeroutput">length</span> is not specified,
it returns the substring starting at the position specified in the <span class="computeroutput">start</span> argument
and continuing to the end of the string.
</p>
<p>
XPATH 1.0 defines that "each character in the string... is considered to have a numeric position: the position of the first character is 1, the position of the second character is 2 and so on.
This differs from Java and ECMAScript, in which the String.substring method treats the position of the first character as 0."
The returned substring contains those characters for which the position of the character is greater than or equal to <span class="computeroutput">start</span> and,
if <span class="computeroutput">length</span> is specified, less than the sum of <span class="computeroutput">start</span> and <span class="computeroutput">length</span>.
</p>
<p>
If <span class="computeroutput">start</span> and/or <span class="computeroutput">length</span> are not integers,
they are converted to integers following rules for round() XPATH function, before doing any other processing.
So they will be rounded first, and the sum of rounded values will be used as "end position"
</p>
<p>
If <span class="computeroutput">start</span> is greater than or equal to the length of string, the empty string is returned.
If <span class="computeroutput">length</span> is specified and the sum of <span class="computeroutput">start</span> is less than or equal to 1, the empty string is returned, too.
Otherwise, the result string will contains some characters even if <span class="computeroutput">start</span> is less than 1.
</p>
<p>
If <span class="computeroutput">length</span> <span class="computeroutput">start</span> is greater than or equal to the length of string, the empty string is returned.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1">
<div class="refsect1title">Parameters</div>
<div class="refsect2">
<span class="refsect2title">strg – </span>
Source string. If the argument is not a string, it is converted to string first.</div>
<div class="refsect2">
<span class="refsect2title">start – </span>
Position of first character of the substring in the source string.</div>
<div class="refsect2">
<span class="refsect2title">length – </span>
Number of characters in the substring, if specified.</div>
</div>
<div class="refsect1">
<div class="refsect1title">Return Types</div>
<p>String</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1">
<div class="refsect1title">Examples</div>
<a name="xpf_ex_substring" />
<div class="example">
<div class="exampletitle" />
<p>The following expressions are all true:</p>
<div>
<pre class="screen">
substring("12345", 2, 3) = "234"
substring("12345", 2) = "2345"
substring("12345", 1.5, 2.6) = "234"
substring("12345", 0, 3) = "12"
substring("12345", -2, 5) = "12"
substring("12345", -2) = "12345"
</pre>
</div>
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<div class="refsect1">
<div class="refsect1title">See Also</div>
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<a href="xpf_substring_after.html">substring-after()</a>
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