bug#12866: 24.3.50; (elisp) `%-Constructs': padded with spaces to the right or left?

[Drew Adams]

The Info node says this near the top:
 
 In any construct except `%%', you can add a decimal integer after the
 `%' to specify a minimum field width.  If the width is less, the field
 is padded with spaces to the right.
 
>From what I can see, it pads with spaces to the left of the field, not
the right.  For example:
 
(set (make-local-variable 'mode-line-position) '("%40l"))
 
It seems to me that that pads the line number with spaces on the left,
not the right.  But perhaps I'm missing something.

In GNU Emacs 24.3.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2012-11-05 on MS-W7-DANI
Bzr revision: 110809 lekktu@gmail.com-20121105172930-a5gn0bwi4lndchhw
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
Configured using:
 `configure --with-gcc (4.7) --no-opt --enable-checking --cflags
 -I../../libs/libXpm-3.5.10/include -I../../libs/libXpm-3.5.10/src
 -I../../libs/libpng-1.2.37-lib/include -I../../libs/zlib-1.2.5
 -I../../libs/giflib-4.1.4-1-lib/include
 -I../../libs/jpeg-6b-4-lib/include
 -I../../libs/tiff-3.8.2-1-lib/include
 -I../../libs/libxml2-2.7.8-w32-bin/include/libxml2
 -I../../libs/gnutls-3.0.9-w32-bin/include
 -I../../libs/libiconv-1.9.2-1-lib/include'