Question

I am trying to right-align the output of some PL/SQL code, but dbms_output.put_line is trimming the leading whitespace from my strings. How do I make it stop? Or is there a better way to output strings with leading whitespace?

dbms_output.put_line(lpad('string', 30, ' '));

outputs:

string

instead of:

                        string

Answer 1

The problem is not with dbms_output but with SQL*Plus.

Use

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON FORMAT WRAPPED

or

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON FORMAT TRUNCATED

to preserve the spaces.

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From the documentation (PDF) of SET SERVEROUT WORD_WRAPPED (which is the standard):

SQL*Plus left justifies each line, skipping all leading whitespace.