How to echo blanks (spaces)

[rtcary]

I need to pad a string with blanks, however HTML will only print one. What is the best way to do this?

str_pad($claimant_count, 7, "*", STR_PAD_LEFT);

Todd

[laserlight]

Print   instead.

[NogDog]

Or echo normal space within <pre></pre> tags or any other block-level tags with a style of white-space:pre applied to it.