Help with retrieving string data

Hello,

I am trying to retrieve only the first few characters (12 to be precise) from this string that is coming in from FoxPro to SQL Server 2005 and I am coding in C#. I have tried these methods (after reading it in a book, as I am new to this) but it still gives me an error saying that the field cannot exceed 12 characters.

autoClaimSalvage.Phone = "Select LEFT ('" + (string)(drInputDataSource["OWNPHN"]) + "',12) From '" + entityManager.TargetTable + "'";

autoClaimSalvage.Phone = "Select LTRIM(RTRIM(OWNPHN)) From '" + entityManager.TargetTable + "'";

autoClaimSalvage.Phone = "Select LTRIM(RTRIM('" + ((string)(drInputDataSource["OWNPHN"])) + "'))" + entityManager.TargetTable + "'";

Please let me know what i am doing wrong and if anyone has a sample code or if you can point me in the right direction, I will appreciate it.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Can you share/check the length of 'ownph' column in the database. Your second select is doing ltrim(rtrim) but not limiting the length to 12 characters.

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I am not sure how long the field is in the database that I am retrieving the data from, because I get nothing when I put a watch on the field. As to the ltrim(rtrim) function, the examples do not show how to limit the length to any specified number of characters. All the examples only show to do ltrim(rtrim(fieldname)).

|||Problem solved. Thank you for your help.|||As we use this post to learn new things, can you share how you got around the problem.