VS 2019 Separateing strings

I need to separate strings, however not looking to use arrays or list to so if I don't have to.

I want to separate by a specific character ("-"). Everything beyond and including the - I want to drop or delete.

So in other words ABC-12 becomes ABC and -12 will be deleted.

What is the best was to do this?

I know about split but that seems overkill for what I want to do.

Thank You