Is there a JavaScript function that can pad a string to get to a determined length?

Question

I am in need of a JavaScript function which can take a value and pad it to a given length (I need spaces, but anything would do). I found this:

Code:

Answer 1

I think its better to avoid recursion because its costly.

function padLeft(str,size,padwith) {
	if(size <= str.length) {
        // not padding is required.
		return str;
	} else {
        // 1- take array of size equal to number of padding char + 1. suppose if string is 55 and we want 00055 it means we have 3 padding char so array size should be 3 + 1 (+1 will explain below)
        // 2- now join this array with provided padding char (padwith) or default one ('0'). so it will produce '000'
        // 3- now append '000' with orginal string (str = 55), will produce 00055

        // why +1 in size of array? 
        // it is a trick, that we are joining an array of empty element with '0' (in our case)
        // if we want to join items with '0' then we should have at least 2 items in the array to get joined (array with single item doesn't need to get joined).
        // 000 to get 3 zero we need 4 (3+1) items in array   
		return Array(size-str.length+1).join(padwith||'0')+str
	}
}

alert(padLeft("59",5) + "\n" +
     padLeft("659",5) + "\n" +
     padLeft("5919",5) + "\n" +
     padLeft("59879",5) + "\n" +
     padLeft("5437899",5));