Any method equivalent to PadLeft/PadRight?

Question

Just wondering, is there any equivalent in VBA to VB .NET\'s PadLeft and PadRight methods?

As of right now, whenever I want to take a string and make it a fixed leng

Answer 1

I don't believe there are any explicit PADLEFT or PADRIGHT functions, but you can use a combination of SPACE and LEFT or RIGHT to prepend spaces to your string, and then grab the right X number of characters.

PADLEFT

strOrdNo = RIGHT(Space(8) & strOrdNo, 8)

If you want a character instead of spaces, you can use STRING instead of space (the example below left-pads with X):

strOrdNo = RIGHT(String(8, "X") & strOrdNo, 8)

PADRIGHT

strOrdNo = LEFT(strOrdNo & Space(8), 8)

strOrdNo = LEFT(strOrdNo & String(8, "X"), 8)

Answer 2

I solved the problem by reassigning variable.
In my code I get data from workbook cell and limit it to 5 char (if necessary fill with enough 0..):

MB = Right(String(5, "0") & Worksheets("HOME").Range("b3"), 5)
MB = Right(MB, 5)

Answer 3

Merging the top two answers (thanks to LittleBobbyTables and Brad) and noting the helper function max, I would suggest:

Function PadLeft(ByVal text As Variant, ByVal totalLength As Integer, ByVal padCharacter As String) As String
    PadLeft = Right(String(totalLength, padCharacter) & CStr(text), max(totalLength, Len(CStr(text))))
End Function

Function PadRight(ByVal text As Variant, ByVal totalLength As Integer, ByVal padCharacter As String) As String
    PadRight = Left(CStr(text) & String(totalLength, padCharacter), max(totalLength, Len(CStr(text))))
End Function

Public Function max(ByVal x As Variant, ByVal y As Variant) As Variant
  max = IIf(x > y, x, y)
End Function

totalLength might be better named minimumLength, since the entire original string is always returned, possibly causing the result to be longer than minimumLength.

Answer 4

Format("abc","!@@@@@@") ' width >= 6; pad right side with spaces
Format("abc","@@@@@@") ' width >= 6; pad left side with spaces

Answer 5

You could use these. Put them in a public module

'NB Fails if input string is longer than the total length

Function PadLeft(text As Variant, totalLength As Integer, padCharacter As String) As String
    PadLeft = String(totalLength - Len(CStr(text)), padCharacter) & CStr(text)
End Function

Function PadRight(text As Variant, totalLength As Integer, padCharacter As String) As String
    PadRight = CStr(text) & String(totalLength - Len(CStr(text)), padCharacter)
End Function

Answer 6

Since we generally pad on the left side, the Format() function is shorter, simpler:

Format(number, "    ")

Format(number, "00")