Repeat string N times without loop in Java

java-repeat-string.md

Repeat string N times without loop in Java

package javaapplication1;
public class JavaApplication1 {
    /**
     * Repeat string <b>str</b> <b>times</b> time.
     * @param str string to repeat
     * @param times repeat str times time
     * @return generated string
     */
    public static String repeat(String str, int times) {
        return new String(new char[times]).replace("\0", str);
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(repeat("*", 5));
    }

}

Thanks for writing this. Would you mind explaining why this works? Thanks!

But the loop happens internally, right ? What you are trying to avoid is the external loop. Am I correct ?

Primitive types (char[], in this case) are instantiated with nulls "number of times", then a String is created from the char[], and the nulls are replaced() with the character you want in str

If you've Apache 'commons-lang3' already in classpath, org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.repeat(...) methods use similar technique.