How can I pad a value with leading zeros?

Question

I can't believe all the complex answers on here... Just use this:

var zerofilled = ('0000'+n).slice(-4);

Simple way. You could add string multiplication for the pad and turn it into a function.

var pad = "000000";
var n = '5';
var result = (pad+n).slice(-pad.length);

As a function,

function paddy(num, padlen, padchar) {
    var pad_char = typeof padchar !== 'undefined' ? padchar : '0';
    var pad = new Array(1 + padlen).join(pad_char);
    return (pad + num).slice(-pad.length);
}
var fu = paddy(14, 5); // 00014
var bar = paddy(2, 4, '#'); // ###2

Note to readers!

As commenters have pointed out, this solution is "clever", and as clever solutions often are, it's memory intensive and relatively slow. If performance is a concern for you, don't use this solution!

Potentially outdated: ECMAScript 2017 includes String.prototype.padStart and Number.prototype.toLocaleString is there since ECMAScript 3.1. Example:

var n=-0.1;
n.toLocaleString('en', {minimumIntegerDigits:4,minimumFractionDigits:2,useGrouping:false})

...will output "-0000.10".

// or 
const padded = (.1+"").padStart(6,"0");
`-${padded}`

...will output "-0000.1".

A simple function is all you need

function zeroFill( number, width )
{
  width -= number.toString().length;
  if ( width > 0 )
  {
    return new Array( width + (/\./.test( number ) ? 2 : 1) ).join( '0' ) + number;
  }
  return number + ""; // always return a string
}

you could bake this into a library if you want to conserve namespace or whatever. Like with jQuery's extend.

I actually had to come up with something like this recently. I figured there had to be a way to do it without using loops.

This is what I came up with.

function zeroPad(num, numZeros) {
    var n = Math.abs(num);
    var zeros = Math.max(0, numZeros - Math.floor(n).toString().length );
    var zeroString = Math.pow(10,zeros).toString().substr(1);
    if( num < 0 ) {
        zeroString = '-' + zeroString;
    }

    return zeroString+n;
}

Then just use it providing a number to zero pad:

> zeroPad(50,4);
"0050"

If the number is larger than the padding, the number will expand beyond the padding:

> zeroPad(51234, 3);
"51234"

Decimals are fine too!

> zeroPad(51.1234, 4);
"0051.1234"

If you don't mind polluting the global namespace you can add it to Number directly:

Number.prototype.leftZeroPad = function(numZeros) {
    var n = Math.abs(this);
    var zeros = Math.max(0, numZeros - Math.floor(n).toString().length );
    var zeroString = Math.pow(10,zeros).toString().substr(1);
    if( this < 0 ) {
        zeroString = '-' + zeroString;
    }

    return zeroString+n;
}

And if you'd rather have decimals take up space in the padding:

Number.prototype.leftZeroPad = function(numZeros) {
    var n = Math.abs(this);
    var zeros = Math.max(0, numZeros - n.toString().length );
    var zeroString = Math.pow(10,zeros).toString().substr(1);
    if( this < 0 ) {
        zeroString = '-' + zeroString;
    }

    return zeroString+n;
}

Cheers!

---

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XDR came up with a logarithmic variation that seems to perform better.

WARNING: This function fails if num equals zero (e.g. zeropad(0, 2))

function zeroPad (num, numZeros) {
    var an = Math.abs (num);
    var digitCount = 1 + Math.floor (Math.log (an) / Math.LN10);
    if (digitCount >= numZeros) {
        return num;
    }
    var zeroString = Math.pow (10, numZeros - digitCount).toString ().substr (1);
    return num < 0 ? '-' + zeroString + an : zeroString + an;
}

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Speaking of performance, tomsmeding compared the top 3 answers (4 with the log variation). Guess which one majorly outperformed the other two? :)