STUFF( )
Returns a string with specified characters removed and others inserted in their place.
Syntax
STUFF(<target expC>, <start expN>, <quantity expN>, <replacement expC>)
<target expC>
The string you want to remove characters from and replace with new characters.
<start expN>
The character position in the string at which you want to start removing characters.
<quantity expN>
The number of characters you want to remove from the string.
<replacement expC>
The characters you want to insert in the string.
Description
STUFF( ) returns a target character expression with a replacement character string inserted at a specified position. Starting at the position you specify, <start expN>, STUFF( ) removes a specified number, <quantity expN>, of characters from the original string.
If the target character expression is an empty string, STUFF( ) returns the replacement string.
If <start expN> is less than or equal to 0, STUFF( ) treats <start expN> as 1. If <quantity expN> is less than or equal to 0, STUFF( ) inserts the replacement string at position <start expN> without removing any characters from the target.
If <start expN> is greater than the length of the target, STUFF( ) doesn’t remove any characters and appends the replacement string to the end of the target.
If the replacement string is empty, STUFF( ) removes the characters specified by <quantity expN> from the target, starting at <start expN>, without adding characters.
The stuff( ) method is almost identical to the STUFF( ) function, but in addition to the syntactic difference of being a method instead of a function and the fact that the position is zero-based, the replacement string is optional, and defaults to an empty string.