R: Pad Strings

pad {qdapTools} | R Documentation

## Pad Strings

### Description

A convenience wrapper for `sprintf` that pads the front end of strings with spaces or 0s. Useful for creating multiple uniform directories that will maintain correct order.

### Usage

    pad(x, padding = max(nchar(as.character(x))), sort = TRUE,
      type = "detect")

### Arguments

`x` | A character, factor, numeric vector.
`padding` | Number of characters to pad. Default makes all elements of a string the number of characters of the element with the maximum characters.
`sort` | logical. If `TRUE` the outcome is sorted.
`type` | A character string of `"detect"`, `"numeric"`, `"character"`, `"d"` or `"s"`. If numeric zeros are padded. If character spaces are padded. The `detect` attempts to determine if x is numeric (d) or not (s).

### Value

Returns a character vector every element padded with 0/spaces.

### Note

`pad` is a wrapper for the `sprintf` function. `pad` may behave differently on various platforms in accordance with the documentation for `sprintf`: "actual implementation will follow the C99 standard and fine details (especially the behaviour under user error) may depend on the platform." See `sprintf` for more information.

### See Also

`sprintf`

### Examples

    pad(sample(1:10, 10))
    pad(sample(1:10, 10), sort=FALSE)
    pad(as.character(sample(1:10, 10)))
    pad(as.character(sample(1:10, 10)), sort=FALSE)
    pad(as.character(sample(1:10, 10)), 4)
    pad(month.name)

[Package qdapTools version 1.3.3 Index]