padLeft$

A function that can be used in Formulas.

## Syntax and semantics

`padLeft$` (`string$`, `minimumNewWidth` [, `pad$`])
  add characters (selected from `pad$`) to the left of `string$` until the result is at least as long as `minimumNewWidth`:

`assert padLeft$ ("hello", 12, ".") = ".......hello"
` `assert padLeft$ ("hello", 5, ".") = "hello"
`

If `pad$` is not given, the padding will be done with spaces:

`assert padLeft$ ("hello", 12) = " hello"
`

No truncation takes place, so the resulting string may be longer than `minimumNewWidth`:

`assert padLeft$ ("hello", 3) = "hello"
` `assert padLeft$ ("hello", -100) = "hello"
`

If `pad$` contains more than one character, the left edge of `pad$` is left-aligned to the resulting string, so that the result will look good if padding is used for visualizing columns:

`assert padLeft$ ("hello", 12, ".-;)") = ".-;).-;hello"
` `assert padLeft$ ("goodbye", 12, ".-;)") = ".-;).goodbye"
`

There will be an error message if padding is required but no characters are to be found in `pad$`:

`asserterror Empty pad string.
` `a$ = padLeft$ ("hello", 12, "")
`

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