Question

How to create a list with the same element n-times ?

Manually implementnation:

scala> def times(n: Int, s: String) =
 | (for(i <- 1 to n) yield s).toList
times: (n: Int, s: String)List[String]

scala> times(3, "foo")
res4: List[String] = List(foo, foo, foo)

Is there also a built-in way to do the same ?

Answer 1

See scala.collection.generic.SeqFactory.fill(n:Int)(elem: =>A) that collection data structures, like Seq, Stream, Iterator and so on, extend:

scala> List.fill(3)("foo")
res1: List[String] = List(foo, foo, foo)

WARNING It’s not available in Scala 2.7.