PadLeft doesn't work

Question

I'm trying to add a character many times before a string. AMAIK in C#, it's PadLeft.

string firstName = "Mary";
firstName = firstName.PadLeft(3, '*'); // This should return ***Mary

But it doesn't work. Am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

The first argument is total length of the returned string, as "Mary" is 4 characters long and your first argument is 3, it is working as expected. If you try firstName.PadLeft(6, '*') you'll get **Mary.

Answer 2

You should add length of your string like that:

firstName = firstName.PadLeft(firstName.Length + 3, '*');

First parameter(totalWidth) represents the result string length. If your string length is less then totalWidth parameter, PadLeft adds so many chars that result string length will be equal to totalWidth.