How can the sprintf function in PHP be utilized to format strings with a specific length and padding?

To format strings with a specific length and padding in PHP, you can use the sprintf function with format specifiers. The format specifier %s is used to insert a string, while the width specifier and padding characters can be used to define the desired length and padding. For example, to pad a string with spaces to a total length of 10 characters, you can use '%-10s' in the sprintf function.

$string = "Hello";
$formattedString = sprintf("%-10s", $string);
echo $formattedString; // Outputs "Hello     "