Padding Out a String

[lenin]

Hi,
can some one let me know how to pad out a string.

i.e. I declare a string

dim ls_str as string

I then find the size of a foeld in a database. I set the value of the string. If the string size is smaller than the field size I want to pad the string out to the size of the field with spaces.



Hope this is clear.

Thanks in advance.

Lenin

[gfk]

Dim FieldLen as integer
Dim LsStr as string

FieldLen=20
LsStr = "Hello"

LsStr = LsStr & Space$(FieldLen-len(LsStr))

[lenin]

Thanks for the speedy response.

[Buzby]

Why not use

Dim LsStr As String * 20

LsStr = "Hello"
MsgBox "#" & LsStr & "#"

You'll see that even though you only put "Hello" into the string you will ALWAYS get 20 characters out (that's what the * 20 means) - so it is automatically padded with spaces.
The one thing to look out for is when you are comparing variables;

If LsStr = "Hello" Then
   Msgbox "TRUE"
Else
   Msgbox "FALSE"
End If

will return FALSE because "Hello" does not equal "Hello                "

In these instances you should use TRIM; eg;

If Trim(LsStr) = "Hello" Then
   Msgbox "TRUE"
Else
   Msgbox "FALSE"
End If

TRIM removes any spaces from around the contents of LsStr and compares that with "Hello" - which will return TRUE.

Hope this helps.