PADL(), PADR() and PADC() will all do an automatic conversion to character type. Very useful whan you have to do things like displaying leading zeroes.

? PADL(123, 5, "0")
instead of
? PADL( LTRIM( STR( 123)), 5, "0")

Even more useful (sometimes) is the fact that the resulting string will retain ALL decimal places.

? PADL(123.4567, 10)
Unlike STR(), which must be told explicitly how many places to retain.
? STR(123.4567, 10)
? STR(123.4567, 10, 2)

Just passing it along.