How to rpad spaces for the below code

Question

begin
dbms_output.put_line(rpad(null,10,' ') ||'b');
end;
The output is not appending spaces. I have a requirement to append spaces between columns. Some times the column will be empty. In that case the space is not getting appended.Please let me know the solution.
thanks,
Vinodh

Answer 1

Hi,
It is just DBMS_OUTPUT issue nothing else.
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  declare
  2   a VARCHAR2(20);
  3  begin
  4   a:= rpad(' ',10,' ');
  5  dbms_output.put_line(a||'b');
  6* end;
SQL> /
b
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  declare
  2   a VARCHAR2(20);
  3  begin
  4   a:= rpad(' ',10,' ');
  5  dbms_output.put_line(LENGTH(a)||'b'); -- Tried through variable also
  6* end;
SQL> /
10b
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  declare
  2   a VARCHAR2(20);
  3  begin
  4   a:= rpad(' ',10,' ');
  5  dbms_output.put_line('          '||'b');  -- Here 10 Hardcoded Blanks
  6* end;
SQL> /
b
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>