Right pad a string with variable number of spaces

Whammo blammo (for leading spaces):

SELECT 
    RIGHT(space(60) + cust_name, 60),
    RIGHT(space(60) + cust_address, 60)

OR (for trailing spaces)

SELECT
    LEFT(cust_name + space(60), 60),
    LEFT(cust_address + space(60), 60),

The easiest way to right pad a string with spaces (without them being trimmed) is to simply cast the string as CHAR(length). MSSQL will sometimes trim whitespace from VARCHAR (because it is a VARiable-length data type). Since CHAR is a fixed length datatype, SQL Server will never trim the trailing spaces, and will automatically pad strings that are shorter than its length with spaces. Try the following code snippet for example.

SELECT CAST('Test' AS CHAR(20))

This returns the value 'Test '.