Name

LPAD()

Synopsis

LPAD(str, len, padstr)

Returns the string str padded to a length of len characters by prepending the string with padstr characters. If str is longer than len, the string returned will be truncated to len characters. This code:

SELECT LPAD('January', '8', ' ');
SELECT LPAD('February', '8', ' ');
SELECT LPAD('March', '8', ' ');
SELECT LPAD('April', '8', ' ');
SELECT LPAD('May', '8', ' ');

returns the following strings:

 January
February
   March
   April
     May

Notice how all the strings have been padded to be eight characters long.