LPAD in DB2

In IBM DB2, you can use the LPAD function to pad a string to the left with a specific set of characters until it reaches a specified length. Here's how you can use LPAD with an example:

SELECT LPAD(employee_name, 15, '*') AS padded_name

FROM employees;

In this query:

- employee_name is the original string to be padded.

- 15 is the total length of the resulting string after padding.

- '*' is the character to pad the original string with.

This query will retrieve the employee_name column from the employees table and pad each name with asterisks (*) to make them 15 characters long from the left. The result will be aliased as padded_name.

For example, if you have an employee named "John", the result would be "***********John" because "John" is only 4 characters long, and it's padded with asterisks to reach a length of 15 characters from the left. Adjust the length and padding character as needed for your specific requirements.