Table of Contents for

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

This function adds padding to the right end of string, stopping if the combination of string and the added padding reach length characters. If the length given is shorter than the length of the string, the string will be shortened to comply with the length constraint. The padding can be any character. Here is an example:

SELECT RPAD(course_name, 25, '.') AS Courses
FROM courses
WHERE course_code LIKE 'ENGL%'
LIMIT 3;

+---------------------------+
| Courses                   |
+---------------------------+
| Creative Writing......... |
| Professional Writing..... |
| American Literature...... |
+---------------------------+

This statement presents a list of three course names that are retrieved. Each row of the results is padded with dots to the right.