SELECT ( "Петров"   &  " "  & LEFT( "Александр" , 1 ) &  "." ) AS short_name

SELECT (a.person_last_name  &  " "  & LEFT(a.person_name,  1 ) &  "." ) AS short_name
FROM person a

substr
SUBSTR(s,m,n) returns the substring of s starting at position m and ending at position n.
Note This function can receive and return up to  32 , 767  characters, the limit on an
InterBase character string.
DECLARE EXTERNAL FUNCTION SUBSTR
CSTRING( 80 ), SMALLINT, SMALLINT
RETURNS CSTRING( 80 ) FREE_IT
ENTRY_POINT ’IB_UDF_substr’ MODULE_NAME ’ib_udf’;