padLeft$

A function that can be used in Formulas.

Syntax and semantics

padLeft$ (string$, minimumNewWidth [, pad$])
add characters (selected from pad$) to the left of string$ until the result is at least as long as minimumNewWidth:
assert padLeft$ ("hello", 12, ".") = ".......hello"
assert padLeft$ ("hello", 5, ".") = "hello"

If pad$ is not given, the padding will be done with spaces:

assert padLeft$ ("hello", 12) = " hello"

No truncation takes place, so the resulting string may be longer than minimumNewWidth:

assert padLeft$ ("hello", 3) = "hello"
assert padLeft$ ("hello", -100) = "hello"

If pad$ contains more than one character, the left edge of pad$ is left-aligned to the resulting string, so that the result will look good if padding is used for visualizing columns:

assert padLeft$ ("hello", 12, ".-;)") = ".-;).-;hello"
assert padLeft$ ("goodbye", 12, ".-;)") = ".-;).goodbye"

There will be an error message if padding is required but no characters are to be found in pad$:

asserterror Empty pad string.
a$ = padLeft$ ("hello", 12, "")

Links to this page


© Paul Boersma 2024