>By using SPACE$(255), the code is much more readable, but speed is down
>by 2% :-)
>
>But thanks to your suggestion, I have modified the SPACE$ statement to
>fill only the required number of bytes and the function now averages
>a 2x speed increase!
>
>Here is the final version of PADLEFT$...
>
C'mon, I want my version, too. :-)

This returns the source string unchanged if totalLength is too small, and 
returns a 255-byte string if it's too big.

Is this faster, or slower?
 0"0
 =J= a  y
  "

local mode
local fn PADLEFT$ (@srcStr as ptr, totalLength as long)
dim padStr as str255
padStr[0] = 0
if totalLength > 255 then totalLength = 255
if totalLength > srcStr.0`` then padStr = space$(totalLength - srcStr.0``)
padStr += srcStr.0$
end fn = padStr

dim r
for r = 10 to 50
print fn PADLEFT$ ("This is a test", r)
next