From the archive
Tuesday, 25 August 2026
LEFT and RIGHT pull fixed-width pieces off either end of a string — no delimiter to search for.
You handle customer service for Cobalt Outfitters, a mail-order retailer. Every order number follows the same pattern — three letters for the sales channel, a dash, the four-digit year, another dash, then a five-digit sequence number, so WEB-2026-00458 was order 458, placed through the website. A colleague building a filter wants the channel and the sequence number split into their own columns rather than read out of the string by eye. Pull the channel into column B and the sequence number, as a real number, into column C.
A new exercise every morning, plus every day that came before it — a back catalogue that grows by one a day, whether or not you were here for it.
The last 14 days. Today's challenge is free while your streak is alive; Pro opens every past day too.