Pad a string with leading zeros so it's 3 characters long in SQL Server 2008

Question

I have a string that is up to 3 characters long when it\'s first created in SQL Server 2008 R2.

I would like to pad it with leading zeros, so if its original value w

Answer 1

Here is a variant of Hogan's answer which I use in SQL Server Express 2012:

SELECT RIGHT(CONCAT('000', field), 3)

Instead of worrying if the field is a string or not, I just CONCAT it, since it'll output a string anyway. Additionally if the field can be a NULL, using ISNULL might be required to avoid function getting NULL results.

SELECT RIGHT(CONCAT('000', ISNULL(field,'')), 3)