title: unwanted leading blank space on oracle number format
body: <p>I need to pad numbers with leading zeros (total 8 digits) for display. I'm using oracle.</p>
  
  <pre><code>select to_char(1011,'00000000') OPE_NO from dual;
  select length(to_char(1011,'00000000')) OPE_NO from dual;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Instead of '00001011' I get ' 00001011'.
  Why do I get an extra leading blank space? What is the correct number formatting string to accomplish this?</p>
  
  <p>P.S. I realise I can just use <code>trim()</code>, but I want to understand number formatting better.</p>
  
  <p>@Eddie: I already read the documentation. And yet I still don't understand how to get rid of the leading whitespace. </p>
  
  <p>@David: So does that mean there's no way but to use <code>trim()</code>?</p>