Left function in c#

It sounds like you're asking about a function

string Left(string s, int left)

that will return the leftmost left characters of the string s. In that case you can just use String.Substring. You can write this as an extension method:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static string Left(this string value, int maxLength)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) return value;
        maxLength = Math.Abs(maxLength);

        return ( value.Length <= maxLength 
               ? value 
               : value.Substring(0, maxLength)
               );
    }
}

and use it like so:

string left = s.Left(number);

For your specific example:

string s = fac.GetCachedValue("Auto Print Clinical Warnings").ToLower() + " ";
string left = s.Substring(0, 1);

It's the Substring method of String, with the first argument set to 0.

 myString.Substring(0,1);

[The following was added by Almo; see Justin J Stark's comment. —Peter O.]

Warning: If the string's length is less than the number of characters you're taking, you'll get an ArgumentOutOfRangeException.

Just write what you really wanted to know:

fac.GetCachedValue("Auto Print Clinical Warnings").ToLower().StartsWith("y")

It's much simpler than anything with substring.