First character of a string?

<cfsavecontent variable="x">
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
[]ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
[bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb]
fffffffffffffff
gggggggggggg
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
</cfsavecontent>

<cfloop list="#x#" delimiters="#chr(13)##chr(10)#" index="listElement">
    <cfset currentLine=createobject("java","java.lang.String").init(listElement)>
    <cfif NOT currentLine.startsWith("[")>
        <cfoutput>#currentLine#</cfoutput><br>
    </cfif>   
</cfloop>

Do you want to identify the first character, or do you want to remove it if it's a "["?  Those are two different things.

Dan's answered the former; the latter can be done with a regular expression replacement:

reReplace(s, "^\[?(.*)", "\1", "ONE")

It's probably a good idea to read-up the regex docs to understand why that's the solution:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/regexp_01.html#1100400

Regular expressions are one of the most powerful capabilities CF has regarding string manipulation, so it's a good skill to have to be able to use them.

--

Adam

left(yourstring,1)