PHP str_pad function

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str_pad

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.1, PHP 5)

This functions returns the input string
padded on the left, the right, or both sides to the specified
padding length. If the optional argument
pad_string is not supplied, the
input is padded with spaces, otherwise it
is padded with characters from pad_string
up to the limit.

Optional argument pad_type can be
STR_PAD_RIGHT, STR_PAD_LEFT,
or STR_PAD_BOTH. If
pad_type is not specified it is assumed to
be STR_PAD_RIGHT.

If the value of pad_length is negative or
less than the length of the input string, no padding takes place.

Example 1. str_pad() example

$input = "Alien";
echo str_pad($input, 10);                      // produces "Alien     "
echo str_pad($input, 10, "-=", STR_PAD_LEFT);  // produces "-=-=-Alien"
echo str_pad($input, 10, "_", STR_PAD_BOTH);   // produces "__Alien___"
echo str_pad($input, 6 , "___");               // produces "Alien_"

Note:
The pad_string may be truncated if the
required number of padding characters can’t be evenly divided by
the pad_string’s length.