Clear definition for the PHP str_pad() Function

Question

what is the effect of the function str_pad() to strings? please explain to me because I cant understand its definition from w3schools. Thanks.

Answer 1

It pads a string to a certain length with (optional) another string.

For example

$foo = 'hello world'; // length 11
echo str_pad($foo, 13); // will echo 'hello world  ';

You can also add a string for padding

$foo = 'hello world';
echo str_pad($foo, 13, 'x'); // will echo 'hello worldxx';

Moreover you can specify where you want the string to be padded

$foo = 'hello world';
echo str_pad($foo, 13, 'x', STR_PAD_LEFT); // will echo 'xxhello world';

$foo = 'hello world';
echo str_pad($foo, 15, 'x', STR_PAD_BOTH); // will echo 'xxhello world';

However, never use w3schools for PHP but try to understand it directly from PHP documentation