Category: Text function
This function pads the beginning of text with pad_char up to a total length defined by total_len.
This function is useful for creating text values from numbers that require leading zeros.
Create fixed width datasets by padding blank spaces to the front of values in each column.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| text | Text | The text value to be padded. |
| pad_char | Text (a single character) | The character to append to the start of text repeatedly until the total string length of total_len is reached. |
| total_len | Number | The total length of the result string including text plus all repeated instances of pad_text. |
Return value type: Text
text and pad_char are implicitly converted to text values if required.
Entering a value for pad_char longer than a single character results in an error message.
Entering a value for total_len equal to or less than the length of text simply returns the value of text.
padstart('99', '0', 5) //Returns '00099'
padstart('1000', '0', 3) //Returns '1000' (Result length entered (3) is less than the length of '1000' (4))
Create a fixed-width dataset from [Col1], [Col2] and [Col3] where [Col1] must be 5 characters wide, [Col2] must be 20 characters wide, and [Col3] must be 12 characters wide:
padstart([Col1], ' ', 5) padstart([Col2], ' ', 20) padstart([Col3], ' ', 12)