Pad

See Also: String Functions, Append, Center, Left, Length, Trim

Purpose

Pad returns a string of specified length with spaces added to, or characters truncated from, the right of the input string as necessary.

Return Type

String

Syntax

(Pad( {string-value}, {length} ))

Where:

• {string-value} is the source string to be padded with spaces

• {length} is the length to which {string-value} will be padded

What It Does

Pad adds spaces to the right of {string-value} until the length of the string is equal to {length}.

Procedure Test

    String sFirstName sLastName

    Move "John"  To sFirstName

    Move "Smith" To sLastName

    Showln (Pad(sFirstName, 10))  sLastName

End_Procedure

In the above example the string "John······Smith" would be shown, where · represents a space character.

Notes

• If {length} is less than the length of {string-value}, this function returns the value of type string truncated on the right to {length}, identically to the way the Left function works.

• If {length} is 0, the function returns an empty string.

• This function returns a value of type string. If the result of this function is moved to a variable of type other than string, its value is converted to the destination type.

• If {string-value} is of type other than string, its value will be converted to a string for output.