Please help in IF condition in Rule

Hi Gurus,

As I am totally new to the SAP Information Steward, Please help me in the below if condition:

BEGIN

IF($Rule_CHAR_REM LIKE ('.%')) RETURN replace_substr($Rule_CHAR_REM, '.', '', 1, 1);

END

$Rule_CHAR_REM is the parameter which i created and I need to search if the field record is starting from '.' and if it is present than remove the '.'.

Regards,

DJ