Recently I had to create a code/username maker to fit into a certain type of pattern so that all “broker codes” (as they were called) followed the same path.
An example one looked like so:

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HJTH0001

The number needed to increment and I wanted to use the auto-increment feature in the mysql database table that was driving this data to make it.

This was easy but I ended up with a code that looked like this:

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HJTH1

No zeros!

So I found a built in PHP function which I somehow managed to overlook for years and years and years.

The magic function this time around is called… str_pad() and I used it like this to get the result I was after:

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$last_id = 1;
/*
$last_id is dynamically assigned from the mysql_insert_id() after the mysql_query() finishes, and we have a auto-increment value
*/
$brokercode = "HJTH".str_pad($last_id, 4, 0, STR_PAD_LEFT);