Correction. It returns

'12------ 40 something space ------'

On a related note,
select rtrim (' a ') from sometable

returns
' 40 something blanks '


select ltrim (' a ') from sometable
returns
'a---- 40 something spaces ---'


It seems that most of the string udf functions behave weirely.

Ben




--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "vmdd_tech" <vmdd_tech@y...>
wrote:

> Suppose s is '1234', then why
> substr (s, 1, 2) returns
> '12------ 78 spaces ------'
>
> Ben