How to use R's sprintf to create fixed width strings with fill whitespace at the END?

Add a minus in front of the 8 to get a left-aligned padded string

That is almost more of a standard "C" rather than R question as it pertains to printf format strings. You can even test this on a command-prompt:

edd@max:~$ printf "[% 8s]\n" foo[     foo]edd@max:~$ printf "[%-8s]\n" foo[foo     ]edd@max:~$

and in R it works the same for padding left:

R> vec <- c("fjdlksa01dada","rau","sjklf")R> sprintf("% 8s", vec)[1] "fjdlksa01dada" "     rau"      "   sjklf"     R>

and right

R> sprintf("%-8s", vec)[1] "fjdlksa01dada" "rau     "      "sjklf   "     R>

Edit: Updated once I understood better what @ran2 actually asked for.

r formatting output printf

The stringr package provides str_pad:

library(stringr)x <- c("fjdlksa01dada","rau","sjklf")str_pad(x, width=8, side="right")

which yields:

[1] "fjdlksa01dada" "rau     "      "sjklf   "

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