Thanks Donna et al. Removing the "1," and enclosing within quotes did the trick.
End result:

:SETVAR WHO_STREAMED_IT lft('!hpstreamedby',6)
:SHOWVAR WHO_STREAMED_IT
WHO_STREAMED_IT = JAY.PD


Donna Garverick wrote:

> Jay Willis wrote:
>
> > Can someone please tell me how I can capture the first 6 bytes of
> > HPSTREAMEDBY from within a Streamx job? This is what I'm getting so far:
> >
> >     :SETVAR VAR LFT(!HPSTREAMEDBY,1,6)
> >     SETVAR VAR LFT(JAY.PDEV (#S98),1,6)
>
> you're not using 'lft' correctly.
>
> :help lft
> Syntax:     LFT(string, # chars)
>
> Defn:       A CI evaluator function that performs left string
>             extraction.
>
> Type:       String
>
> Example:    lft('abc',2)
> Result:     ab
>
> so you want something like:  setvar var lft('!hpstreamedby',6)  <<< note the
> quotes
>
> hth          - d
>
> --
> Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
> 925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]
>
> >>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<