lpad()

Extends the string to length length by prepending the characters fill (a space by default). If the string is already longer than length then it is truncated (on the right).

Signature

lpad ( string text, length integer [, fill text ] ) → text

Examples

SELECT lpad('hi', 5, 'xy');

xyxhi

Run against PostgreSQL 18.6 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

In other engines

PostgreSQL	lpad
MySQL	LPAD(x, 5, '0')
SQL Server	RIGHT(REPLICATE('0', 5) + x, 5)
Oracle	LPAD(x, 5, '0')
SQLite	printf('%05d', x) for numbers

SQL Server has no LPAD before 2025; the REPLICATE idiom is what its ecosystem uses, and it silently truncates from the left when x is already longer than the width.

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