question: public static String appendWhitespaceOrTrim ( String s , int length ) { if ( s == null ) { s = new String ( "" ) ; } int retLength = s . length ( ) ; if ( retLength < length ) { StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer ( s ) ; int numWhites = length - retLength ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < numWhites ; i ++ ) { sb . append ( " " ) ; } s = sb . toString ( ) ; } else if ( retLength > length ) { s = s . substring ( 0 , length ) ; } return s ; }
target:  A method that looks at the length of String s and returns a copy of it with whitespace appended to the end to allow it to have the provided length.