PLSQL | LPAD Function
The PLSQL LPAD function is used for padding the left-side of a string with a specific set of characters. a prerequisite for this is that string shouldn’t be NULL. The LPAD function in PLSQL is useful for formatting the output of a query. The LPAD function accepts three parameters which are input_string, padded_length and the pad_string.
Both input_string and pad_string can be any of the datatypes CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The string returned is of VARCHAR2 datatype if input_string is a character datatype. The argument padded_length must be a NUMBER integer or a value that can be implicitly converted to a NUMBER integer. If you do not specify pad_string, then the default is a single blank. If input_string is longer than padded_length, then this function returns the portion of input_string that fits in padded_length.
Syntax:
LPAD( input_string, padded_length, pad_string )
Parameters Used:
input_string – It is used to specify the string which needs to be formatted.
padded_length – It is used to specify 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 – It is an optional parameter which is used to specify the input_string that will be padded to the left-hand side of string. If this parameter is omitted, the LPAD function will pad spaces to the left-side of string1.
Supported Versions of Oracle/PLSQL:
- Oracle 12c
- Oracle 11g
- Oracle 10g
- Oracle 9i
- Oracle 8i
Example-1:
DECLARE Test_String string(20) := 'w3wiki'; BEGIN dbms_output.put_line(LPAD(Test_String, '5')); END;
Output:
Beginner
Example-2:
DECLARE Test_String string(20) := 'w3wiki'; BEGIN dbms_output.put_line(LPAD(Test_String, '17')); END;
Output:
w3wiki
Example-3:
DECLARE Test_String string(20) := 'w3wiki'; BEGIN dbms_output.put_line(LPAD(Test_String, '17', '0')); END;
Output:
0000w3wiki
Example-4:
DECLARE Test_String string(20) := 'w3wiki'; BEGIN dbms_output.put_line(LPAD(Test_String, '12', '0')); END;
Output:
w3wiki
Contact Us