Pad the string on the right with spaces or the named character. If the string is already padded, as happens with a CHARACTER datatype, the string must first be trimmed using the TRIM function.

This function returns a C STRING datatype.

$RPAD( character_expression, num_characters [, pad_character] )

Required. Any expression that returns a character-class datatype. Examples of expressions are columns, concatenations of columns, literal strings and functions that return a character datatype.

Required. The number of characters to be returned from the function, with the right-most characters padded with spaces or the named character.

Optional. The character to be used to pad the string. If this parameter is omitted, then a space is used as the pad character.

In this example, the name must first be trimmed since it is already padded with spaces.

> select $rpad(trim(name), 40, '.') nme from individuals;

NME
----------------------------------------
MS. MARY LEWIS..........................
MRS. ALICE R TOLLIVER...................
MR. SIDNEY K TOLLIVER...................
MRS. JENNIFER J HOPKINS.................
MR. CHARLIE HOPKINS.....................
MS. KIMBERLY BLUE.......................
KATHLEEN TUCKER.........................

See also: