Table of Contents
PadStart(text, pad_char, total_len)
Category: Text function
Description
This function pads the beginning of text with pad_char up to a total length defined by total_len.
Use cases
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.
Arguments
| 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
Remarks
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.
Examples
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)