replicate function help [duplicate]

Answer 1

Lists in Haskell are "type-homogeneous": they can only have one type in them. So you can't ever have a list like `['a',9].

You can have a tuple ('a',9). You can also have a list of tuples, such as [('a',9)]. But then all tuples in that list must be of type (Char, Integer).

See also: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Lists_and_tuples

But what is your motivation for not using the plain old replicate function?

ghci> replicate 9 'a'
"aaaaaaaaa"

Answer 2

What's wrong with just:

repli Char -> Integer -> String
repli _ 0 = ""
repli c i = c : repli  c (i-1)

This function is in curried form, but if you want to avoid uncurry just write it in its uncurried form:

repli (Char, Integer) -> String
repli t = if (snd t) = 0 then "" else ((fst t) : (repli ((fst t) (snd t)-1))))