In Oracle/PLSQL, the lpad function pads the left-side of a string with a specific set of characters (when string1 is not null).
Syntax
The syntax for the lpad function is:
lpad( string1, padded_length, [ pad_string ] )
string1 is the string to pad characters to (the left-hand side).
padded_length is the number of characters to return. If the padded_length is smaller than the original string, the lpad function will truncate the string to the size of padded_length.
pad_string is optional. This is the string that will be padded to the left-hand side of string1. If this parameter is omitted, the lpad function will pad spaces to the left-side of string1.
Applies To
For Example
| lpad('tech', 7); | would return ' tech' |
| lpad('tech', 2); | would return 'te' |
| lpad('tech', 8, '0'); | would return '0000tech' |
| lpad('tech on the net', 15, 'z'); | would return 'tech on the net' |
| lpad('tech on the net', 16, 'z'); | would return 'ztech on the net' |