• *ADDSLASHES Function
• *concat_keys Function
• *grouping_format_get Function
• *if_error Function
• a5_addtrailingbackslash Function
• a5_changeorderoflist Function
• a5_code_format Function
• a5_pad_leading_tabs Function
• a5_popuptexteditor Function
• a5_remove_curly_brackets Function
• a5_remove_quotes Function
• a5_removetrailingbackslash Function
• a5_unsquare Function
• ALIGN_LEFT Function
• ALLTRIM Function
• CASE Function
• DELIVERY_CODE Function
• IIF Function
• jsescapequotes Function
• LTRIM Function
• PADC Function
• PADL Function
• PADR Function
• profiler_format Function
• QUOTE Function
• RAND_STRING Function
• regex_literal_insert Function
• REPLICATE Function
• RIGHT Function
• RTRIM Function
• savestringtofile Function
• SPACE Function
• TRANSFORM Function
• TRIM Function
• UN_PAREN Function
• UNMASK Function
• unquote Function
• UNQUOTE2 Function
• WORD_WRAP Function

PADL Function

Syntax

Arguments

C

A character string.

length

A positive integer representing the length of the Formatted_String. If Length is less than len(Unformatted_String), then Unformatted_String will be truncated to Length. Numeric

pad_string

The character string to append to the beginning of Unformatted_String to position it within Formatted_String.

Description

Pads the left side of a string with another string.

Discussion

PADL() pads a C_string on the left with a Pad_String, and returns a string of the specified Length. If the length of Pad_String + C_string is less than Length, the Pad_String is repeated to fill the remainder of the string. Note : PADL() or PADR() replicates the string specified as Pad_String to create a string of the specified length.

Example

The following expressions replicate a message to create a line for an invoice or receipt:

? padl(" ", 77, "Thank You ! ")
= "Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You !  Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! "
? padl("$" + ltrim( str(200) ), 10, "*")
= ******$200
? padl(str(3,1),8,"0")
= "00000003"

 Note : PADL() is often the best function for zero filling a field.
 dim myfield as C = " 100"
? myfield
= " 100"
? padl(alltrim(myfield), len(myfield), "0")
= "000000100"

See Also

• Character Formatting Functions