# Turn an integer n into a list containing it n times [closed]

Given an integer n as input, return a list containing n, repeated n times. For example, the program would take 5 and turn it into [5,5,5,5,5]. The elements need to be integers, not strings. No built-in functions that accomplish the task are allowed.

This is , so standard rules apply.

• @BrunoE That still doesn’t answer the why. Do you have an actual reason to ban built-ins? To quote xnor: In general, if your challenge is too simple to be interesting, it won't be saved by banning things. – Lynn Aug 21 '17 at 10:52
• @BrunoE while I agree with the sentiment, we prefer objectivity here at ppcg. Either something is or is not valid, opinions shouldn't come into the equation. – Skidsdev Aug 21 '17 at 11:57
• @BrunoE The specs must be made such that one can indisputably decide whether an entry is valid or not. Please share your thoughts on the existing answers and make the specs more objective when it comes to built-in. – Mr. Xcoder Aug 21 '17 at 12:42
• I'm still confused what counts as a "built-in" for this task. Is Python's * operator ok? What's an example of a built-in that isn't ok? – Steve Bennett Aug 22 '17 at 7:14
• I am suprised nobody has mentioned this yet, but we have a sandbox for challenges where you can post them to get feedback on them, before they go live. This way you might've prevented discussing the rules of the challenge while others already submitted their answers. – JAD Aug 23 '17 at 6:34

# Jelly, 1 byte

x


Try it online!

Note that this is not the “repeat n n times” built-in — its function is more general than that. For example 4,5,6x1,2,3 equals [4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6]. Given only one argument, Jelly just happens to use it as both the left and right argument for the supplied link, but this functionality is not inherent to x.

If this doesn’t count, there are various fun 2-byte alternatives:

x ṁ Ra Rị R» a€ oR oḶ oṬ oẊ Ḷị Ḷ» Ṭị Ṭ» Ẋị Ẋ» ị€ ṛ€ ȧ€ »€


etc.

• Well, yes. Every code golf answer is a collection of built-ins that accomplish the task. You might ban this answer if x did “all the work”, but it most certainly doesn’t — there’s an implicit “0 bytes” of link-parsing and array-coercion logic going on to turn this into repeat([n], n), which is exactly what other answers do. – Lynn Aug 21 '17 at 10:48
• @Adám This is the "repeat each element of x y times" function, taking 2 arguments. What makes it accomplish the task is how Jelly parses implicit arguments, which has nothing to do with the function itself. – Erik the Outgolfer Aug 21 '17 at 12:07
• If this answer is invalid then the constraint of the question is not "No builtins" it is "No 1 byte answers", which is an extremely arbitrary limitation that seems counterproductive in code golf. – Kamil Drakari Aug 21 '17 at 13:44
• I think an argument towards this not being a built-in is that there are two other 1 byte answers in Jelly that do the same thing ṁ and ẋ so this answer could be any one of the three. There aren't 3 built-ins (one would hope) for "repeat n n times", so they can't ALL be a "built-in" for it. – nmjcman101 Aug 21 '17 at 14:03
• This whole comment thread seems a good argument for not banning something as subjective as builtins. – trichoplax Aug 26 '17 at 20:35

# Python 3, 14 bytes

lambda k:[k]*k


Try it online!

• What's wrong with just [n]*n? – user56228 Aug 23 '17 at 3:19
• @paxdiablo That is a snippet. We can create either full programs or functions as per the meta consensus. – Mr. Xcoder Aug 23 '17 at 6:50

# Operation Flashpoint scripting language,  50  46 bytes

f={a=[];t=_this;while{count a<t}do{a=a+[t]};a}


Call with:

hint format["%1", 5 call f]


Output:

• Do you have post decrement, i--, and += in this? – TheLethalCoder Aug 21 '17 at 13:51
• Why are the screenshots for this always in a barren desert? You should use a cool map for your screenshots :P. – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 21 '17 at 15:42
• @MagicOctopusUrn Is that better? – Steadybox Aug 21 '17 at 15:53
• @Steadybox ahaha! Epic :P. Is that the town from left for dead? That looks like the church you start in kinda. – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 21 '17 at 16:07
• I think the screenshots should be posted cropped to a smaller image. We don't need to see the map, and it distracts from the actual output. – mbomb007 May 10 '18 at 20:13

# APL (Dyalog), 2 bytes

Five equally short solutions. Last two are courtesy of Zacharý.

⍴⍨


Try it online!

⍴ cyclically reshape

⍨ self

/⍨


Try it online!

/ replicate

⍨ self

\⍨


Try it online!

\ expand

⍨ self

⌿⍨


Try it online!

⌿ replicate along first (and only) axis

⍨ self

⍀⍨


⍀ expand along first (and only) axis

⍨ self

Try it online!

• @Uriel There's one more… – Adám Aug 21 '17 at 11:12
• Both ⌿⍨ and ⍀⍨ work. – Zacharý Aug 21 '17 at 14:11
• Was it intentional that 'self' looks like a face? – geokavel Aug 21 '17 at 16:12
• @geokavel I don't think so, but I also noticed it as a typed this post. Makes it pretty mnemonic, no? In fact, selfie is one of its semi-official names, so in the RIDE interface to Dyalog APL, you can insert ⍨ by typing selfie. – Adám Aug 21 '17 at 18:18
• @sethrin TIO counts characters (and UTF-8 bytes where applicable), but it is up to the user to ensure that they do not use any characters that are missing from a single-byte character set (SBCS). For APLs, see here. – Adám Aug 22 '17 at 19:20

# Mathematica, 10 bytes

#~Table~#&


# Proton, 8 bytes

n=>[n]*n


Try it online!

• This combines the best of the python answer and the javascript answer, I love it! – Bruno E Aug 21 '17 at 10:48

# Octave, 12 bytes

@(n)~(1:n)+n


Try it online!

• What does the ~ in octave, because that's the only part of your code I don't understand.. – Michthan Aug 24 '17 at 10:57
• @Michthan Sorry for late reply. ~ is the not operator that converts 1:n to an array of 0s of size n. You can use ! instead of it. – rahnema1 Aug 24 '17 at 13:42

# JavaScript (ES6), 19 bytes

n=>Array(n).fill(n)


## Try it

o.innerText=(f=
n=>Array(n).fill(n)
)(i.value=8);oninput=_=>o.innerText=f(+i.value)
<input id=i type=number><pre id=o>

• An array without ... - whatever next?! – Neil Aug 21 '17 at 12:11
• @Neil: it felt wrong even as I was typing it! :D – Shaggy Aug 21 '17 at 17:05

# Pyth, 2 bytes

*]


Test suite.

*]QQ - Full program with implicit input

]   - Turn the input into a list.
*    - Repeat it a number of times equal to the input.


f n=n<$[1..n]  Try it online! Usage: f 5 yields [5,5,5,5,5]. For n=5, [1..n] yields the list [1,2,3,4,5]. n<$ replaces each element of this list with n.

• Mine's a bit longer, but I like it anyway: join replicate – amalloy Aug 23 '17 at 0:13
• @amalloy This would indeed be the clean Haskell way to do it. However, join is not part of Prelude and thus requiers a lengthy import Control.Monad, which rarely makes it useful for golfing. – Laikoni Aug 23 '17 at 8:42

# R, 18 bytes

array(n<-scan(),n)


Try it online!

• Is rep(n<-scan(),n) too close to a builtin? – Robin Gertenbach Aug 21 '17 at 16:37
• @RobinGertenbach Maybe you should post it as a separate answer. – Andreï Kostyrka Mar 24 '18 at 22:05

# 05AB1E, 2 bytes

Fˆ


Try it online!

• Nice, better than .D). – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 21 '17 at 15:40
• @MagicOctopusUrn: Yeah, that was my first thought. – Emigna Aug 21 '17 at 15:53

# Dodos, 76 bytes

	f f r 2
2

r
r d
f s t f
d
dip f s t
f
t
dot f
dot
s
s dip
f
dab


Try it online!

# Explanation:

f is an alias for dab (tail).

s is subtraction, as explained on the wiki: (x, y) → (0, y−x) when x ≤ y.

t maps (a, b, c…) to (b+c+…, a+b+c+…).

f s t maps (a, b, c…) to a. This is our “head” function.

d dips only the head of its argument: (a, b, c…) → (|a−1|, b, c…)

r is the main repetition logic. We map (a, b) to (*r(|a−1|, b), b).

For example, r(4, 7) will evaluate as

  r(4, 7)
= r(3, 7), 7
= r(2, 7), 7, 7
= r(1, 7), 7, 7, 7
= r(0, 7), 7, 7, 7, 7
→ This would call r(1, 7), but (1, 7) ≥ (0, 7), so surrender!
= 0, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7.


Finally, we define 2, which maps n → (n, n), and define main as f f r 2, computing r(n, n) and chopping off the first two elements.

# Japt, 2 bytes

ÆU


Test it

## Explanation

Implicit input of integer U. Generate an array of integers from 0 to U-1. Fill it with U. Implicit output of resulting array.

# TeX, 81 bytes

\newcommand{\f}[1]{#1\count0=2\loop,#1\advance\count0 by1\ifnum\count0<#1\repeat}


## Usage

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\begin{document}

\f{5}

\f{10}
\end{document}


• That's actually LaTeX. In Tex it'd be much shorter. – A Gold Man Sep 8 '17 at 5:22

# Husk, 2 bytes

´R


Try it online!

´    -- Apply next function twice to same argument
R   -- given an integer n and some element, replicate the element n-times


### Polite alternative (3 bytes)

ṠIR


Try it online!

replicate>>=id


Thanks to @nimi, I don't need any import anymore. Yay!

It's a function that takes an integer argument; for example, the following returns [5,5,5,5,5]:

(replicate>>=id) 5

• Why not id=<<replicate? It's also 14 bytes but doesn't need the import. – nimi Aug 21 '17 at 22:44
• @nimi Very good point! Overlooked that possibility. (I really need to dive into the arrow monad more...) – tomsmeding Aug 22 '17 at 7:31

# Java (OpenJDK 8), 50 48 bytes

n->java.util.Arrays.stream(new int[n]).map(i->n)


Try it online!

-2 bytes thanks to @Jakob

Inspired by the comments in @OlivierGrégoire's post, and optimized a little further. Takes an integer input, creates an IntStream of n elements, then maps each element to n and returns it.

• You can save 2 bytes by starting with java.util.Arrays.stream(new int[n]). – Jakob Aug 21 '17 at 19:23

# Perl 5, 18 14 bytes

-4 bytes thanks to @DomHastings

sub{(@_)x"@_"}


Try it online!

Is x a builtin that does the entire task? Sort of? Not really? Rules unclear?

Edit: Yeah, probably it's fine.

• Had pretty much the same, but you can change the first $_[0] to @_! Also the second can be"@_" I think... – Dom Hastings Aug 21 '17 at 13:10 • I would say it doesn't count as a built-in because you have to work around the fact that it takes two inputs instead of one. – Brad Gilbert b2gills Aug 21 '17 at 16:07 • Why not $_=$_ x$_ with perl -pe? – Thor Aug 22 '17 at 6:45
• @Thor x does string repetition, not list repetition, unless the left operand is in parentheses (or is a qw operator) and the x is evaluated in list context. And of course $_ is a scalar, not a list. – aschepler Aug 22 '17 at 23:24 • @Thor I wouldn't count that as satisfying "return a list". – aschepler Aug 23 '17 at 22:54 # J, 2 bytes $~


Same as the APL answer: reflexively shape the input. In other words:

$~ y y$ y
NB. y copies of y


# Brainbash, 39 bytes

>-[-[-<]>>+<]>->#[->+>+<<]>>[-<;<<.>>>]


Try it online!

Prints N N times. Works by generating 32, taking input, then duplicating the input twice, then output the first for each 1 in the second.

# C (gcc), 55 bytes

int*f(k){int*r=malloc(k*4),a=k;for(;a-->0;)r[a]=k;k=r;}


Try it online!

Returns a list of k integers.

• Yay "long arrow operator". Also, I didn't think gcc would ever use register eax for locals. Go figure. – aschepler Aug 21 '17 at 12:22
• You can save 2 bytes by removing a comparison to 0 in for cycle, unless I've overlooked something. – Jasmes Aug 21 '17 at 15:45
• Suggest *f(k){int r[k], instead of int*f(k){int*r=malloc(k*4), – ceilingcat Aug 22 '17 at 20:39

# Röda, 10 bytes

{[[_]*_1]}


Try it online!

Explanation:

{[[_]*_1]}
{        } /* Anonymous function   */
_       /* The input (_1)       */
[ ]      /* As a list            */
*_1   /* Repeated _1 times    */
[      ]  /* Pushed to the stream */

• Why can you leave off the 1 in the first input but not the second? – Conor O'Brien Aug 21 '17 at 22:20
• @ConorO'Brien Each underscore without a number has a number that is one larger than the previous: [_]*_ = [_1]*_2. Because the first underscore is the first, it has automatically the number 1. – fergusq Aug 22 '17 at 5:29

# Groovy, 9 bytes

{[it]*it}


Try it online!

Perhaps the most competitive groovy answer I've done to date.

# brainfuck, 16 bytes

[->+>+<<]>[->.<]


Try it online!

## The breakdown:

[->+>+<<]          Duplicate 'n' into the next 2 cells to the right
>         Move to the first duplicate
[->.<]   Print 'n', 'n' times


As I'm sure you're aware, brainfuck takes input and output values as ASCII characters. So a ! is represented as the value 33.

• Your program doesn't take input, I don't think. Unless you're talking about a value left on the tape – Conor O'Brien Aug 21 '17 at 22:26
• @ConorO'Brien The ladder. Think of it as a function more than a program. – Graviton Aug 21 '17 at 22:27

# Coreutils, sed, 14 bytes

yes $1|sed$1q


As a zsh function, 20 19 bytes:

f(){yes $1|sed$1q}


Try it online!

• I don't think this answer is valid, since it doesn't take input. – James Aug 21 '17 at 13:14
• @DJMcMayhem: used it in a function – Thor Aug 21 '17 at 14:08
• Why not just make it a program yes $1|sed$1q? – Digital Trauma Aug 21 '17 at 20:54
• Good point @DigitalTrauma, updated – Thor Aug 22 '17 at 6:39
• The rules say it has to be integer elements, not string elements. To satisfy that, a bash/zsh answer would need to use declare -i integer variables. But it also has to be an array. I'm not sure bash even supports an integer array (like eval declare -ia "$1" to use the first function arg as the name of an array return value.) I upvoted this because it follows the spirit of the question; I doubt the question meant to exclude languages that don't really have integer lists / arrays. – Peter Cordes Aug 23 '17 at 21:05 # MATL, 4 3 bytes tY"  Try it online! Explanation: t % duplicate elements Y" % replicate elements of array % (implicit) convert to string and display  # Java (OpenJDK 8), 58 56 bytes n->{int a[]=new int[n],i=n;for(;i-->0;)a[i]=n;return a;}  Try it online! -2 bytes thanks to @KevinCruijssen • Two bytes shorter: n->{int a[]=new int[n],i=n;for(;i-->0;)a[i]=n;return a;} – Kevin Cruijssen Aug 21 '17 at 11:15 • @KevinCruijssen Ouch, it hurts I didn't think about that... Thanks! – Olivier Grégoire Aug 21 '17 at 11:58 • Happens to the best of us. ;) If you look in my answer history you'll probably also find some answers where I add something along the lines of "bytes saved thanks to ... due to a stupid mistake by myself / something obvious I forgot.." :) – Kevin Cruijssen Aug 21 '17 at 12:01 • I thought about an answer like IntStream.generate(() -> n).limit(n) but decided it wasn't worth typing up and upvoted this instead :) – JollyJoker Aug 21 '17 at 12:42 • @JollyJoker You could do it! It's indeed two bytes shorter and would easily beat my answer ;-) – Olivier Grégoire Aug 21 '17 at 12:57 # cQuents v0, 3 bytes ::n  Try it online! ## Explanation :: Mode: sequence 2. Given input n, output the sequence n times n Each item in the sequence is n  • Note current version uses & instead of :: – Stephen Feb 1 '19 at 4:51 # Swift 3, 29 bytes {n in(0..<n).map{_ in n}}  Try it here! # Swift 3, 30 bytes {Array(repeating:$0,count:\$0)}


Try it here!

• I wonder if we can get the input as the same variable repeated twice. Then you could have a 10 byte solution: Array.init. Just assign it to a variable with a type alias, and boom: let f: (Int, Int) -> [Int] = Array.init; print(f(5, 5)) – Alexander Sep 21 '17 at 6:41
• @Alexander No, we cannot get the input twice. – Mr. Xcoder Sep 21 '17 at 6:52