>This is to let you all know that I discovered a really nice, undocumented feature of PADL(). It is present in at least vfp7 and higher.
>
>The 3rd parameter can be used to define the Pad Character, says the doc. However, this parameter can be of varying length! An example:
>
>

? "Result: " + padl( 123, 10, "#000000000" )
>Result: #000000123

Of course an immediate issue it is found ! grrr
REPLICATE(char,nn) it is optimized.
VFPT doesn't optimize PADX().
Result, writing a more complex code is gotten a notably greater speed.

CLEAR

? PADL('123'	,100,'#')==PADL('123'	,100,REPLICATE('#',100))
? PADL(123		,100,'#')==PADL(123		,100,REPLICATE('#',100))

FOR K=1 TO 1000000
NEXT

LOOPCOUNT = 200000

t1=SECONDS()
FOR K=1 TO INT(M.LOOPCOUNT)
	=PADL('123'	,100,'#')
	=PADL('123'	,100,'#')
	=PADL(123	,100,'#')
NEXT

? "DIRECT", SECONDS()-T1

t1=SECONDS()

FOR K=1 TO INT(M.LOOPCOUNT)
	=PADL('123'	,100,REPLICATE('#',100))
	=PADL('123'	,100,REPLICATE('#',100))
	=PADL(123	,100,REPLICATE('#',100))
NEXT

? "INDIRECT",SECONDS()-T1