How to insert character or word N times in a buffer or file?

Question

Just curious to know how to do this, since i already know in other languages (bash, etc).

I know how to insert a character in elisp, just not sure on how to do it when it's done nth time (in succession) in elisp.

Here an example:

Basically, inserting (in file or buffer) the character X, 10 times.

XXXXXXXXXX something like that.

Answer 1

There are many ways to write loops/iterative/repetitive behaviour in elisp.

C-hig (elisp)Iteration has the basic options, including dotimes, which is the canonical way to repeat something N times. E.g.:

(dotimes (_ 10) (insert "X"))

For the specific example of repeating a character N times, you might alternatively use make-string.

(insert (make-string 10 ?X))

For more sophisticated looping options, I suggest starting at C-hig (cl)Iteration

Answer 2

If you want to insert the character interactively, do C-u 10 X. This will give you XXXXXXXXXX.

This repeats the self-insert-command (here, for "X"), 10 times. See the manual node on repeating.