Repeat Character N Times

Question

In Perl I can repeat a character multiple times using the syntax:

$a = \"a\" x 10; // results in \"aaaaaaaaaa\"

Is there a simple way to ac

Answer 1

Convenient if you repeat yourself a lot:

String.prototype.repeat = String.prototype.repeat || function(n){
  n= n || 1;
  return Array(n+1).join(this);
}

alert(  'Are we there yet?\nNo.\n'.repeat(10)  )

Answer 2

var stringRepeat = function(string, val) {
  var newString = [];
    for(var i = 0; i < val; i++) {
      newString.push(string);
  }
  return newString.join('');
}

var repeatedString = stringRepeat("a", 1);

Answer 3

The most performance-wice way is https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/repeat

Short version is below.

  String.prototype.repeat = function(count) {
    if (count < 1) return '';
    var result = '', pattern = this.valueOf();
    while (count > 1) {
      if (count & 1) result += pattern;
      count >>>= 1, pattern += pattern;
    }
    return result + pattern;
  };
  var a = "a";
  console.debug(a.repeat(10));

Polyfill from Mozilla:

if (!String.prototype.repeat) {
  String.prototype.repeat = function(count) {
    'use strict';
    if (this == null) {
      throw new TypeError('can\'t convert ' + this + ' to object');
    }
    var str = '' + this;
    count = +count;
    if (count != count) {
      count = 0;
    }
    if (count < 0) {
      throw new RangeError('repeat count must be non-negative');
    }
    if (count == Infinity) {
      throw new RangeError('repeat count must be less than infinity');
    }
    count = Math.floor(count);
    if (str.length == 0 || count == 0) {
      return '';
    }
    // Ensuring count is a 31-bit integer allows us to heavily optimize the
    // main part. But anyway, most current (August 2014) browsers can't handle
    // strings 1 << 28 chars or longer, so:
    if (str.length * count >= 1 << 28) {
      throw new RangeError('repeat count must not overflow maximum string size');
    }
    var rpt = '';
    for (;;) {
      if ((count & 1) == 1) {
        rpt += str;
      }
      count >>>= 1;
      if (count == 0) {
        break;
      }
      str += str;
    }
    // Could we try:
    // return Array(count + 1).join(this);
    return rpt;
  }
}

Answer 4

function repeatString(n, string) {
  var repeat = [];
  repeat.length = n + 1;
  return repeat.join(string);
}

repeatString(3,'x'); // => xxx
repeatString(10,'                                                                    

                                                        
            

Answer 5

this is how you can call a function and get the result by the helps of Array() and join()

function repeatStringNumTimes(str, num) {
  // repeat after me
  return num > 0 ? Array(num+1).join(str) : "";
}

console.log(repeatStringNumTimes("a",10))

Answer 6

These days, the repeat string method is implemented almost everywhere. (It is not in Internet Explorer.) So unless you need to support older browsers, you can simply write:

"a".repeat(10)

Before repeat, we used this hack:

Array(11).join("a") // create string with 10 a's: "aaaaaaaaaa"

(Note that an array of length 11 gets you only 10 "a"s, since Array.join puts the argument between the array elements.)

Simon also points out that according to this jsperf, it appears that it's faster in Safari and Chrome (but not Firefox) to repeat a character multiple times by simply appending using a for loop (although a bit less concise).