RPAD

The RPAD function returns Expression1, right-padded to length n characters with Expression2, replicated as many times as necessary. This function is useful for formatting the output of a query.

SQL syntax

RPAD (Expression1, n [,Expression2])

Parameters

RPAD has the parameters:

Parameter	Description
`Expression1`	CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR OR NVARCHAR2 operand or column to be right-padded. If `Expression1` is longer than `n`, then RPAD returns the portion of `Expression1` that fits in n.
`n`	Length of characters returned by RPAD function. Must be a NUMBER integer or a value that can be implicitly converted to a NUMBER integer.
`Expression2`	CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR OR NVARCHAR2 operand or column to be right-padded to `Expression1`. If you do not specify `Expression2`, then the default is a single blank.

Description

If Expression1 is of type CHAR or VARCHAR2, the data type returned is VARCHAR2. If Expression1 is of type NCHAR or NVARCHAR2, the data type returned is NVARCHAR2.
The returned data type length is equal to n if n is a constant. Otherwise, the maximum result length of 8300 is returned.
You can specify TT_CHAR, TT_VARCHAR, TT_NCHAR, and TT_NVARCHAR for Expression1 and Expression2. If Expression1 is of type TT_CHAR or TT_VARCHAR, the data type returned is TT_VARCHAR. If Expression1 is of type TT_NCHAR or TT_NVARCHAR, the data type returned is TT_NVARCHAR.
For CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, and NVARCHAR2 types:
- If either Expression1 or Expression2 is NULL, the result is NULL. If n is less than or equal to 0, then the result is NULL.
For TT_CHAR, TT_VARCHAR, TT_NCHAR and TT_NVARCHAR types:
- If either Expression1 or Expression2 is not NULL and if n is less than or equal to 0, then the result is the empty string.

Examples

Concatenate first_name and last_name from the employees table. Call the RPAD function to return first_name right-padded to length 12 with spaces and call RPAD a second time to return last_name right-padded to length 12 with spaces. Select first 5 rows.

Command> SELECT FIRST 5 CONCAT (RPAD (first_name,12),
         RPAD (last_name,12)) FROM employees
         ORDER BY first_name, last_name;
< Adam        Fripp        >
< Alana       Walsh        >
< Alberto     Errazuriz    >
< Alexander   Hunold       >
< Alexander   Khoo         >
5 rows found.

Call the RPAD function to return last_name right-padded to length 20 characters with the dot ('.') character. Use the employees table and select first 5 rows.

Command> SELECT FIRST 5 RPAD (last_name,20,'.') FROM employees
         ORDER BY last_name;
< Abel................ >
< Ande................ >
< Atkinson............ >
< Austin.............. >
< Baer................ >
5 rows found.