Does anyone know if there is a function or how to write one that
concatenates a letter to a string a specific number of times?

For instance, I have letter H in a variable called $letter
I want to create a string that contains H a certain number of times
that is stored in another variable called $repetition.

So, when $repetition is 5 my string should be HHHHH

I was trying to write a custom function that uses another custom
function called VariableInitialize and trying to Loop adding H to that
string, but VariableInitialize seems to work only with number and not
characters.

PS: VariableInitialize function was obtained free from
www.briandunning.com

Thanks

Is that the sort of thing?

Sring(letter;repetitions) =

Case(
repetitions = 1; letter;
String(letter;repetitions - 1) & letter
)

Thiago Jorge wrote:

In article <1130351516.112596.101770 (AT) z14g2000cwz (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
thijorge (AT) gmail (DOT) com says...
With FM7D or FM8A you can define a recursive function:

repeat (n,s) =
case(
n<1,""
n=1,s,
n>1,s& repeat(n-1,s))


Call repeat with (4,"h")

And you'll get

"h"&repeat(3,"h")

which expands to

"h"&"h"&repeat(2,"h")
....
"h"&"h"&"h"&"h"
hhhh

it will also work on strings (repeat(2,"xyz") = xyzxyz

if you don't have 7D or 8A you'd have to make do with a looping script
to build your string.

A very simple way to do it that works without Developer powers is:

Left(Substitute ( "{plenty of spaces}"; " "; letter);repetition)

[Replace {plenty of spaces} with space characterss corresponding to as many
repetitions as you think you'll ever need. And make it $letter, $repetition
if you're using variables.]

It's not as cool as a recursive function, but gets the job done.

Bill

"42" <nospam (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote

In article <BtadnThHpqAIzf3eRVn-3g (AT) comcast (DOT) com>, wjm (AT) wjm (DOT) org says...
I was aware of the left, 'plenty of spaces' solution, but it hadn't
occured to me to use a substitute to handle the "but I want an arbitrary
letter not spaces" problem.

Nice solution.