How to get the first letter from custom field?

Question

I have a custom field 'first_name' created by ACF advanced custom fields. I use this code to get the value from the field: the out put would be something like Mark. What I need exactly is getting only the first letter from the first name. I tried to use

$string = the_field('first_name');
echo $string[0];

&

$string = the_field('first_name');
echo substr($string, 0, 1); 

&

$myStr = the_field('first_name'); 
$result = substr($myStr, 0, 1); 
echo $result;

but both methods give the full name not only the first letter. Any suggestions please?

Answer 1

Try this....

<?php

$string = get_field('first_name');
echo $string[0];

?>

I am not that much familiar with ACF. But my answer is based on their function reference here http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/the_field/

Hope this helps.

Sabbir H