Help with DAX function LEFT and a dynamic number of characters

[Anonymous]

I have a column named BinMax which format is text. I'd like to create a calculated column extracting all but the last two chracters of this string. Say, for BinMax="212", I'd like to get "2" as a return. For "1212", I'd like to get "12".

I tried:

LEFT(
      [BinMax]
      LEN([BinMax] - 2)
     )

but got error:

When I try LEN([BinMax] - 1) it works.

What seemed so simple has already taken me hours trying to solve it. What am I missing here?

[Anonymous]

Thanks @tamerj1 , I had zeros in the column, so LEN of any string - 2 equals negative, which results in error. Thanks for opening my eyes to the other rows in the column 🙂

[tamerj1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

please try

NewColumn =
IFERROR ( LEFT ( [BinMax], LEN ( [BinMax] - 2 ) ), BLANK () ) 
then filter for the blanks to see which rows are causing the error