Add Leading Zeros to the Elements of a Vector in R Programming – Using paste0() and sprintf() Function

paste0() and sprintf() functions in R Language can also be used to add leading zeros to each element of a vector passed to it as argument.

Syntax:
paste0(“0”, vec) 
or 
sprintf(“%0d”, vec)
Parameters:
paste0: It will add zeros to vector 
sprintf: To format a vector(adding zeros) 
vec: Original vector data
Returns: Vectors by addition of leading zeros 

Example 1:

r

# R Program to add leading zeros

# Create example vector
vec <- c(375, 21, 1, 7, 0)
vec

# Add leading zeros
vec_0 <- paste0("0", vec)
vec_0

Output :

[1] 375  21   1   7   0
[1] "0375" "021"  "01"   "07"   "00"  

Example 2:

r

# R Program to add leading zeros

# Create example vector
vec <- seq(5)

# Add leading zeros
sprintf("sequence_%03d", vec)

Output :

[1] "sequence_001" "sequence_002" "sequence_003" "sequence_004" "sequence_005"