TEXTBEFORE

The TEXTBEFORE function returns a string value consisting of all characters that appear before a given substring in the original string value.

TEXTBEFORE(source-string, search-string, occurrence)

source-string: Any value.

search-string: The string value to search.

occurrence: An optional value indicating which occurrence of search-string within source-string to match (1 for first match, 2 for second match, …, -1 for last match, -2 for second to last match, …). If omitted, set to 1.

Notes

By default, if there are multiple occurrences of search-string in source-string, TEXTBEFORE will return the text up to (and excluding) the first occurrence.
If search-string isn’t found within source-string, or if the given occurrence can’t be found, an error will be returned.
REGEX is permitted in search-string for more complex searches.
By default, the search isn't case sensitive. To consider case in your search, use the REGEX function for search-string.

Examples
=TEXTBEFORE("John Appleseed", " ") returns "John". =TEXTBEFORE("If you want to return the text before the second to, in case there are multiple to occurrences.", "to", 2) returns "If you want to return the text before the second". =TEXTBEFORE("All the text before the very last occurrence of the word the", "the", -1) returns "All the text before the very last occurrence of the word”. =TEXTBEFORE("Get all the text before an email like john@appleseed.com", REGEX("([A-Z0-9a-z._%+-]+)@([A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4})")) returns "Get all the text before an email like ".

Examples

=TEXTBEFORE("John Appleseed", " ") returns "John".

=TEXTBEFORE("If you want to return the text before the second to, in case there are multiple to occurrences.", "to", 2) returns "If you want to return the text before the second".

=TEXTBEFORE("All the text before the very last occurrence of the word the", "the", -1) returns "All the text before the very last occurrence of the word”.

=TEXTBEFORE("Get all the text before an email like john@appleseed.com", REGEX("([A-Z0-9a-z._%+-]+)@([A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4})")) returns "Get all the text before an email like ".

See alsoTEXTAFTER TEXTBETWEEN REGEX

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TEXTBEFORE

Notes