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REPEAT ​

Return a character string that is repeated n times.

REPEAT(string, number)

The first argument is any character string, or an expression that evaluates to a character string.

The second argument must be a literal number value (or an expression that evaluates to a literal number). You cannot specify a column name. A negative number is interpreted as zero. This function returns either a CHAR or a VARCHAR data type, depending on the input.

For example:

premdb=# select distinct repeat(city,3) from team where capacity>50000 order by 1;
            repeat             
--------------------------------
 LondonLondonLondon
 ManchesterManchesterManchester
 NewcastleNewcastleNewcastle
(3 rows)

The following example shows the behavior of the function when character strings have trailing spaces. The season table contains four columns:

premdb=# \d season
             Table "public.season"
   Column    |         Type          | Modifiers 
-------------+-----------------------+-----------
 seasonid    | smallint              | 
 season_name | character(9)          | 
 numteams    | smallint              | 
 winners     | character varying(30) |

Two new rows are inserted:

premdb=# insert into season values(30, '2022-2023   ', 20, 'Unknown   ');
INSERT 0 1
premdb=# insert into season values(31, '2023     ', 20, 'Unknown   ');
INSERT 0 1

Trailing blanks are present in the values inserted into the season_name (CHAR) and winners (VARCHAR) columns. When the REPEAT function is run on these columns, the trailing spaces are not preserved for season_name, but they are preserved for winners:

premdb=> select repeat(season_name,2), repeat(winners,2) from season where seasonid in(30,31);
      repeat       |        repeat        
--------------------+----------------------
 20232023           | Unknown   Unknown   
 2022-20232022-2023 | Unknown   Unknown   
(2 rows)

See also Trailing Blanks in Character Data.

Parent topic:String Functions