Please Review: 6984084 (str) n times repetition of character constructor for java.lang.String

[Vitaly Davidovich]

FWIW, the few times I "needed" a repeat operation it's always been with a
char, not a string.  I think a common use case for this to create some
layout in the printed string, such as adding a separator (e.g. "*********",
"---------", etc) or adding white space padding (could also be something
like "..........") to align output - both are just chars.

Sent from my phone
On Aug 22, 2012 5:47 AM, "Alan Bateman" <Alan.Bateman at oracle.com> wrote:

> On 21/08/2012 21:45, Jim Gish wrote:
>
>> Please review http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~**jgish/6984084-jdk8-**
>> StringRepeat/<http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~jgish/6984084-jdk8-StringRepeat/><
>> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/%**7Ejgish/6984084-jdk8-**StringRepeat/<http://cr.openjdk.java.net/%7Ejgish/6984084-jdk8-StringRepeat/>
>> >
>>
>> This started in lambda, making changes to both StringJoiner and String.
>>  However, the dependence of String.repeat() on StringJoiner has been
>> removed and the resulting non-lambda classes moved here for review.  There
>> will be a separate change and review for the StringJoiner changes in
>> lamda-dev.
>>
> On the surface then String s = "foo".repeat(5); seems nice. I just wonder
> whether we can get any data on usage of similar methods in commonly used
> libraries. Some languages such as Python have a built-ins for this, and I
> think C# has a ctor, just not clear (to me anyway) how often the latter or
> equivalent it used. Folks here might be able to jump in to indicate how
> often they've needed to do this and whether the common-case is a repeated
> char rather than String (or CharSequence). Folks here might also have ideas
> on getting some usage data in other libraries or languages.
>
> I'm less sure about StringBuilder.append(int,**CharSequence) as
> sb.append(5,cs) is not much less than "for (int i=0; i<5; i++)
> sb.append(cs);". I also wonder whether it may be more common to want to
> appear a number of chars, sb.append(5, '-') for example.
>
> Anyway, on the javadoc then AbstractStringBuilder.append suggests special
> hanging for n==1 but I think that can be dropped the javadoc.
>
> On the implementation then it would be good to make the style consistent
> with the existing code (4 spaces for indent, etc.). Otherwise it seems okay.
>
> I assume the update to test/Makefile is just for your own local usage and
> that you aren't planning to include this (the jdk_lang target already runs
> the tests in test/java/lang/**).
>
> In Repeat.java (same thing in AppendIntCharSequence.java) then I think the
> -1 test can be simplified to:
>
> try {
>     "c".repeat(-1);
>     throw new RuntimeException(...);
> } catch (IllegalArgumenetException expected) { }
>
> We use GPL on the tests so you need to check AppendIntCharSequence.java.
>
> On test coverage then it looks like StringBuffer is missed. Also the
> assertion that appending null will append "null".
>
> -Alan.
>
>
>