Adding blank spaces into a string in C#

Question

I have this code

String coNum = customerOrderLine.coNum.PadLeft(10 - customerOrderLine.coNum.Length);

I know that customerOrderLine.coNum = "123456" So I should end up with coNum being having 4 empty spaces at the front of it but I end up with it being "123456". How do I fix this? I tried PadRight in case that was the mistake and it also failed to work. I have to have the 4 empty spaces at the beginning to pass it into the API I am working on or it will fail.

Looks like it should work. Are you sure it's not padded? Display the string to make sure, and put delimiters around: "[" + coNum + "]"; — Daniel Gabriel
– Daniel Gabriel, Commented Dec 12, 2011 at 22:16

Matthew Strawbridge · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-12 22:17:20Z

7

PadLeft takes a total length as a parameter, so I think you want

String coNum = customerOrderLine.coNum.PadLeft(10);

answered Dec 12, 2011 at 22:17

Matthew Strawbridge

20.8k10 gold badges81 silver badges97 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Ben Hoffman Over a year ago

Wow you are right. I totally didn't read the msdn page closely enough.

oleksii · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-12 22:23:13Z

1

This is because you have incorrectly specified the totalWidth parameter of the Pad* method. From docs:

The number of characters in the resulting string, equal to the number of original characters plus any additional padding characters.[...] If totalWidth is equal to the length of this instance, the method returns a new string that is identical to this instance.

answered Dec 12, 2011 at 22:23

oleksii

36.1k16 gold badges98 silver badges173 bronze badges

Comments

JYelton · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-12 22:19:38Z

0

PadLeft does not specify a default character to pad with; your second argument should be the character to use for the pad, i.e.:

String coNum = customerOrderLine.coNum.PadLeft(10, ' ');

Edit: Also the first argument should be total desired length, not number of pad characters to add, per @Matthew's answer.

answered Dec 12, 2011 at 22:19

JYelton

36.6k28 gold badges140 silver badges196 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Adding blank spaces into a string in C#

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related