Simple way to repeat a string

Question

I\'m looking for a simple commons method or operator that allows me to repeat some string n times. I know I could write this using a for loop, but I wish to avoid f

Answer 1

OOP Solution

Nearly every answer proposes a static function as a solution, but thinking Object-Oriented (for reusability-purposes and clarity) I came up with a Solution via Delegation through the CharSequence-Interface (which also opens up usability on mutable CharSequence-Classes).

The following Class can be used either with or without Separator-String/CharSequence and each call to "toString()" builds the final repeated String. The Input/Separator are not only limited to String-Class, but can be every Class which implements CharSequence (e.g. StringBuilder, StringBuffer, etc)!

Source-Code:

/**
 * Helper-Class for Repeating Strings and other CharSequence-Implementations
 * @author Maciej Schuttkowski
 */
public class RepeatingCharSequence implements CharSequence {
    final int count;
    CharSequence internalCharSeq = "";
    CharSequence separator = "";
    /**
     * CONSTRUCTOR - RepeatingCharSequence
     * @param input CharSequence to repeat
     * @param count Repeat-Count
     */
    public RepeatingCharSequence(CharSequence input, int count) {
        if(count < 0)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can not repeat String \""+input+"\" less than 0 times! count="+count);
        if(count > 0)
            internalCharSeq = input;
        this.count = count;
    }
    /**
     * CONSTRUCTOR - Strings.RepeatingCharSequence
     * @param input CharSequence to repeat
     * @param count Repeat-Count
     * @param separator Separator-Sequence to use
     */
    public RepeatingCharSequence(CharSequence input, int count, CharSequence separator) {
        this(input, count);
        this.separator = separator;
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence subSequence(int start, int end) {
        checkBounds(start);
        checkBounds(end);
        int subLen = end - start;
        if (subLen < 0) {
            throw new IndexOutOfBoundsException("Illegal subSequence-Length: "+subLen);
        }
        return (start == 0 && end == length()) ? this
                    : toString().substring(start, subLen);
    }
    @Override
    public int length() {
        //We return the total length of our CharSequences with the separator 1 time less than amount of repeats:
        return count < 1 ? 0
                : ( (internalCharSeq.length()*count) + (separator.length()*(count-1)));
    }
    @Override
    public char charAt(int index) {
        final int internalIndex = internalIndex(index);
        //Delegate to Separator-CharSequence or Input-CharSequence depending on internal index:
        if(internalIndex > internalCharSeq.length()-1) {
            return separator.charAt(internalIndex-internalCharSeq.length());
        }
        return internalCharSeq.charAt(internalIndex);
    }
    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return count < 1 ? ""
                : new StringBuilder(this).toString();
    }

    private void checkBounds(int index) {
        if(index < 0 || index >= length())
            throw new IndexOutOfBoundsException("Index out of Bounds: "+index);
    }
    private int internalIndex(int index) {
        // We need to add 1 Separator-Length to total length before dividing,
        // as we subtracted one Separator-Length in "length()"
        return index % ((length()+separator.length())/count);
    }
}

Usage-Example:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    //String input = "12345";
    //StringBuffer input = new StringBuffer("12345");
    StringBuilder input = new StringBuilder("123");
    //String separator = "<=>";
    StringBuilder separator = new StringBuilder("<=");//.append('>');
    int repeatCount = 2;

    CharSequence repSeq = new RepeatingCharSequence(input, repeatCount, separator);
    String repStr = repSeq.toString();

    System.out.println("Repeat="+repeatCount+"\tSeparator="+separator+"\tInput="+input+"\tLength="+input.length());
    System.out.println("CharSeq:\tLength="+repSeq.length()+"\tVal="+repSeq);
    System.out.println("String :\tLength="+repStr.length()+"\tVal="+repStr);

    //Here comes the Magic with a StringBuilder as Input, as you can append to the String-Builder
    //and at the same Time your Repeating-Sequence's toString()-Method returns the updated String :)
    input.append("ff");
    System.out.println(repSeq);
    //Same can be done with the Separator:
    separator.append("===").append('>');
    System.out.println(repSeq);
}

Example-Output:

Repeat=2    Separator=<=    Input=123   Length=3
CharSeq:    Length=8    Val=123<=123
String :    Length=8    Val=123<=123
123ff<=123ff
123ff<====>123ff