Question

In a bash script, I have to include the same file several times in a row as an argument. Like this:

convert image.png image.png image.png [...] many_images.png

where image.png should be repeated a few times.

Is there a bash shorthand for repeating a pattern?

Answer 1

This works with a given integer (10 in the example below).

$ echo $(yes image.png | head -n10)
image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png

It can also be used with xargs:

$ yes image.png | head -n10 | xargs echo
image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png image.png