RPAD in MSSQL

In Microsoft SQL Server, the equivalent function to Oracle's RPAD is the RIGHT function, which extracts a specified number of characters from the right side of a string. However, to replicate the padding functionality of RPAD, you can combine the RIGHT function with string concatenation.

Here's an example of how to achieve the same result as Oracle's RPAD using the RIGHT function and string concatenation in Microsoft SQL Server:

SELECT 

    employee_name + REPLICATE('*', 15 - LEN(employee_name)) AS padded_name

FROM 

    employees;

In this query:

- REPLICATE('*', 15 - LEN(employee_name)) generates a string of asterisks (*) repeated enough times to fill the remaining characters needed to reach a total length of 15 characters, subtracting the length of the original employee_name.

- LEN(employee_name) calculates the length of the original employee_name.

- employee_name + REPLICATE('*', 15 - LEN(employee_name)) concatenates the original employee_name with the generated padding string.

This query will pad each employee_name with asterisks (*) to make them 15 characters long, similar to the RPAD function in Oracle.