Question on aligning char to the right side.

Question

Hi there,
I got stuck on displaying numbers in varchar2.
As I saw the result of a select cmd, if the data type is char,
the result will be displayed as aligned left. If the data type is number,
the result is aligned right.
Say
create table tmp1(
id number,
name varchar2(10)
insert tmp1 values(1,'1');
insert tmp1 values(2,'2');
insert tmp1 values(3,'John');
select id,name from tmp1;
id name
1 1
2 2
3 John
How can I align the name column right?
In other words, how to make char column right aligned?
This is the result what I want.(To line them up, I used underline in Name column.)
id name
1 ____1
2 ____2
3 John
Thanks.
Phil

Answer 1

Use LPAD(col1,10,' ')
SQL> with data as ( select 1 id, '1' name from dual
  2  union all      select 2,    '2'      from dual
  3  union all      select 3,    'John'   from dual
  4  ) -- data
  5  select id, lpad(name,10,' ') name
  6  from data ;
        ID NAME
         1          1
         2          2
         3       JohnSS