Idiomatic way of repeating items in a sequence.

[Mike C. Fletcher]

John Hunter wrote:

>This doesn't look too bad to me, but perhaps list comprehensions are
>clearer?
>
>  seq = ['a', 'b', 'c']
>  print [x for x in seq for x in seq]
>
 >>> def repeat3( sequence, count=1 ):
...     return [x for x in sequence for i in range(count) ]
...
 >>> repeat3( [2,3,4], 3 )
[2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4]

I *think* is what you were suggesting, and is indeed very clear.  For 
those into generators, this is fun (but has no huge advantage if you 
wind up using repeat instead of irepeat, or if you're using small 
sequences):

 >>> from __future__ import generators
 >>> def irepeat( sequence, count=1 ):
...     countSet = range(count)
...     for item in sequence:
...         for i in countSet:
...             yield item
...
 >>> def repeat( sequence, count = 1 ):
...     return list(irepeat(sequence, count))
...
 >>> repeat( [2,3,4], 3 )
[2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4]

Enjoy,
Mike

_______________________________________
  Mike C. Fletcher
  Designer, VR Plumber, Coder
  http://members.rogers.com/mcfletch/