Displaying spaces in dbms_output.put_line

[unisysguru]

I am new, so please forgive my ignorance. I am trying to output data with leading spaces, this is truncated.

dbms_output.put_line(lpad('CREATE: ',30||mydate));

it displays as:

CREATE: 20040101

instead of

CREATE: 20040101

Why is this happening?
Thanks
Bill Pendleton

 

[carp]

Try
LPAD('CREATE: '||mydate,30);

 

[SantaMufasa]

Unisys,

The problem is not YOUR ignorance...The problem comes from ORACLE's ignorance !!! They built a REALLY STUPID "feature" into the DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE procedure that left trims spaces from output strings. What I do to workaround the problem is use a non-printing ("space-like") character [such as CHR(160)]when outputting leading "spaces":

exec dbms_output.put_line(lpad('CREATE: '||sysdate,30,chr(160)))
             CREATE: 17-JUN-04

Let us know if this resolves your need.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA @ 17:24 (17Jun04) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"), 10:24 (17Jun04) Mountain Time)