(PHP 4 >= 4.0.1, PHP 5)
str_pad — Pad a string to a certain length with another string
This functions returns the input string padded on the left, the right, or both sides to the specified padding length. If the optional argument pad_string is not supplied, the input is padded with spaces, otherwise it is padded with characters from pad_string up to the limit.
The input string.
If the value of pad_length is negative or less than the length of the input string, no padding takes place.
Note: The pad_string may be truncated if the required number of padding characters can't be evenly divided by the pad_string 's length.
Optional argument pad_type can be STR_PAD_RIGHT, STR_PAD_LEFT, or STR_PAD_BOTH. If pad_type is not specified it is assumed to be STR_PAD_RIGHT.
Returns the padded string.
Example #1 str_pad() example
<?php
$input = "Alien";
echo str_pad($input, 10); // produces "Alien "
echo str_pad($input, 10, "-=", STR_PAD_LEFT); // produces "-=-=-Alien"
echo str_pad($input, 10, "_", STR_PAD_BOTH); // produces "__Alien___"
echo str_pad($input, 6 , "___"); // produces "Alien_"
?>