Amazon Redshift will no longer support the use of Python UDFs after June 30, 2026. We will start enforcing it in phases. For more information on the details of Python end of life and migration options, see the [ blog post ](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/amazon-redshift-python-user-defined-functions-will-reach-end-of-support-after-june-30-2026/) that was published on June 30, 2025. 

# LPAD and RPAD functions
<a name="r_LPAD"></a>

These functions prepend or append characters to a string, based on a specified length. 

## Syntax
<a name="r_LPAD-synopsis"></a>

```
LPAD(string1, length, [ string2 ])
```

```
RPAD(string1, length, [ string2 ])
```

## Arguments
<a name="r_LPAD-arguments"></a>

 *string1*   
A `CHAR` string, a `VARCHAR` string, or an expression that implicitly evaluates to a `CHAR` or `VARCHAR` type. 

 *length*   
An integer that defines the length of the result of the function. The length of a string is based on the number of characters, not bytes, so that multi-byte characters are counted as single characters. If *string1* is longer than the specified length, it is truncated (on the right). If *length* is zero or a negative number, the result of the function is an empty string.

 *string2*   
(Optional) One or more characters that are prepended or appended to *string1*. If this argument is not specified, spaces are used. 

## Return type
<a name="r_LPAD-return-type"></a>

VARCHAR

## Examples
<a name="r_LPAD-examples"></a>

The following examples use data from the EVENT table in the TICKIT sample database. For more information, see [Sample database](c_sampledb.md).

To truncate a specified set of event names to 20 characters and prepend the shorter names with spaces, use the following example. 

```
SELECT LPAD(eventname, 20) FROM event
WHERE eventid BETWEEN 1 AND 5 ORDER BY 1;

+---------------------+
|         lpad        |
+---------------------+
|              Salome |
|        Il Trovatore |
|       Boris Godunov |
|     Gotterdammerung |
|La Cenerentola (Cind |
+-----------------------+
```

To truncate the same set of event names to 20 characters but append the shorter names with `0123456789`, use the following example. 

```
SELECT RPAD(eventname, 20,'0123456789') FROM event
WHERE eventid BETWEEN 1 AND 5 ORDER BY 1;

+----------------------+
|         rpad         |
+----------------------+
| Boris Godunov0123456 |
| Gotterdammerung01234 |
| Il Trovatore01234567 |
| La Cenerentola (Cind |
| Salome01234567890123 |
+----------------------+
```