Term: LPAD

Definition:
The Oracle LPAD function pads (adds characters to) the left-side of a string with a given set of characters.

Example Syntax:

LPAD(string, padding_length, [ padding_string ])

The string is the string to prepend or pad characters onto. The padded characters are added to the left-hand side of the string.

The padding_length is the number of characters to return (not the number of characters to add). If the padding_length is smaller than the original string, the LPAD function will truncate the string to the size of the padding_length.

The padding_string is optional. This is the character string that will be padded to the left-hand side of string. If this parameter is omitted, the LPAD function will default to padding space characters to the left-side of the string.

Example Usage:

lpad('Oracle', 10);        would return '    Oracle'

lpad('Oracle', 2);         would return 'Or'

lpad('Oracle', 10, 'X');   would return 'XXXXOracle'

lpad('Oracle', 6, 'X');    would return 'Oracle' (no change is made)