[exim] $extract question

Hi All,

I am trying to extract the first character of a string (i'm using exim 4.50)

I have see the definition of extract, and it requires a seperator...I
have tried leaving it blank -
${extract{1}{}{abcdefg}}

But I still get "abcdefg" (but I want just "a").

I looked through the manual, but could not find any function that will
do this? (my other alternative is to run an external command, but I
would like to save the cpu cycles and complexity) :)


Any suggestions?


Cheers,
Andrew.