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RPAD and LPAD [Oracle SQL]

lpad ('string', n [, 'string_pad')
rpad ('string', n [, 'string_pad')

string is left padded to length n w ith string_pad. If string_pad

is ommited, a space w ill be used as default
rpad is similar, but pads right instead of left.

Demonstration 1
The second parameter (n) to lpad or rpad determines the
resulting length. If string is longer than n, string w ill be cut:

select
lpad('string with 25 characters', 20) lpad,
rpad('string with 25 characters', 20) rpad
from dual;

LPAD RPAD
-------------------- --------------------
string with 25 chara string with 25 chara

Demonstration 2
The literal string is lpadded to all lengths betw een 1 and 15.
The < show s w here the string is cut. As soon as the second
parameter becomes larger than the length of the first
parameter, lpadding occurs. The default is space, so spaces are
prepended to string:

begin

for i in 1 .. 15 loop
dbms_output.put_line(
lpad('string', i) || '<'
);
end loop;

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end;
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Demonstration 3
Same thing as in demonstration 2, but w ith rpad instead of
lpad:

begin

for i in 1 .. 15 loop
dbms_output.put_line(
rpad('string', i) || '<'
);
end loop;

end;
/

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Demonstration 4
This demonstration is again similar to demonstration 2, but it
uses a non-default padding string (.,_).

begin

for i in 1 .. 15 loop
dbms_output.put_line(
lpad('string', i, '.,_')
);
end loop;

end;
/

s
st
str
stri
strin
string
.string
.,string
.,_string
.,_.string
.,_.,string
.,_.,_string
.,_.,_.string
.,_.,_.,string
.,_.,_.,_string

Demonstration 5
This demonstration show s how to pretty print some output.

create table rlpad_tbl (

col_1 varchar2(10),
col_2 varchar2(10)
);
insert into rlpad_tbl values ('apple', 'pear' );
insert into rlpad_tbl values ('grapefruit','mango' );
insert into rlpad_tbl values ('orange', 'banana' );
insert into rlpad_tbl values ('lemon', 'watermelon');

Now , the values of col_1 and col_2 are selected and

concatenated:

select col_1 || ' - ' || col_2 from rlpad_tbl;

This results in:

apple - pear
grapefruit - mango
orange - banana
lemon - watermelon

The length of the values of col_1 varies. This is because col_1

is of type varchar2. Only the relevant (or used) portion of its
capacity is printed.
It might be desired to neatly align the parts of the
concatenated string. rpad and lpad comes to rescue:

select
rpad(col_1, 10) || ' - ' ||
lpad(col_2, 10)
from
rlpad_tbl;

apple - pear
grapefruit - mango
orange - banana
lemon - watermelon

Empty string side effects

Oracle treats an empty string as null. And nulls are alw ays a
bit special w ithin Oracle. Particularly, rpad('', n) and lpad('',

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n) returns null.

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