jquery string + add extra characters to start

Question

I have the following JQUERY Function:

function siteCounterUpdate(n) {
    $('ul#indexSiteCounterBottom').empty();
    for(i=0;i<9;i++) {

            //alert(n.toString()[i]);

      $('ul#indexSiteCounterBottom').append('<li>'+n.toString()[i]+'</li>');
      $('ul#indexSiteCounterBottom li:nth-child(3n)').addClass('extra-margin');
    }
}

The function receives a number (string) and if its 9 characters long it works perfectly. 9 is the full length.

However if the number is say 7 characters long I need the first 2 items to be replaced with a HTML no breaking space.

  

I'm struggling to understand how I can do this.

eg: 6 character long string would be 1. nbsp 2. nbsp 3. nbsp 4 - 9. the string.

any advice would be great.

thx

Answer 1

Here's how to pad a string:

function padString (str, len, padWith) {
    var padLength = len - str.length;
    return padLength < 1 ? str : Array(padLength + 1).join(padWith) + str;
}

Sample usage:

padString('1234567899', 9, ' '); // "1234567899"
padString('123456789', 9, ' ');  // "123456789"
padString('12345678', 9, ' ');   // " 12345678"
padString('1234567', 9, ' ');    // "  1234567"
padString('234567', 9, ' ');     // "   234567"

Here's the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/8JdwP/

Answer 2

You can use a couple of for loops like so to count between n and 9 for your  's and 0 and n for your string:

function siteCounterUpdate(n) {
    var target = $('ul#indexSiteCounterBottom').empty();

    for (var i=n.length;i<9;i++) {
        target.append('<li>&nbsp;</li>');
    }

    // `i` doesn't have to be declared again because there's no block
    // scope in JavaScript, but I think it looks ugly otherwise :(.
    for (var i=0;i<n.length;i++) {
        target.append('<li>' + n + '</li>');
    }
}

Answer 3

I might be confused about what you want, but could you just right-align the counter so you don't need the spaces?

If not, you could create a pad function like described here.

Answer 4

while (yourString.length < 9)
{
    yourString = "\u00A0" + yourString;   
}

demo