LPAD

LPAD adds characters to the left of an expression to a specified length. The data type of the return value is the same as the original text.

Use RPAD to add characters to the right.

Return Value

CHAR | NCHAR | VARCHAR2 | NVARCHAR2

Syntax

LPAD(expr1, n [, expr2 ])

Arguments

expr1 is a text expression for the base string.

n is the total length of the returned expression. If expr1 is longer than n, then this function truncates expr1 to n characters.

expr2 is a text expression for the padding characters. By default, it is a space.

Example

LPAD('Page 1',15,'*.') returns the value *.*.*.*.*Page 1.

LPAD('Stay tuned', 4) returns the value Stay.