How to repeat a string n times in Kotlin, when n is Long

Question

I know using repeat function we can repeat a string n times but what if the n is bigger than a size of an Int

I'm afraid it's not possible, unless long is actually small enough to fit in Int. String just can't contain so many characters: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1179996/2956272 — , Jul 29 '19 at 20:16

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 29 '19 at 20:20

1

You can do this, though you are likely to run out of memory with such long strings

fun String.repeat(times: Long): String {
    val inner = (times / Integer.MAX_VALUE).toInt()
    val remainder = (times % Integer.MAX_VALUE).toInt()
    return buildString {
        repeat(inner) {
            append(this@repeat.repeat(Integer.MAX_VALUE))
        }
        append(this@repeat.repeat(remainder))
    }
}

answered Jul 29 '19 at 20:20

Francesc

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This won't actually work (unless `times` fits into `Int` _or_ the string is empty), dyukha's comment is correct. – Alexey Romanov Jul 30 '19 at 07:00
@AlexeyRomanov, Is there any other data type that can hold that amount of value other than `String`? – Amin Memariani Jul 30 '19 at 18:09
@AminMemariani Not in the standard library, unless I miss something. You can't even define your own implementing `CharSequence`, that has `int` length too. – Alexey Romanov Jul 30 '19 at 18:14

How to repeat a string n times in Kotlin, when n is Long

1 Answers1