Question

Is there a way to print same character repeatedly in bash, just like you can use this construct to do this in python:

print('%' * 3)

gives

%%%

Answer 1

sure, just use printf and a bit of bash string manipulation

$ s=$(printf "%-30s" "*")
$ echo "${s// /*}"
******************************

There should be a shorter way, but currently that’s how i would do it. You can make this into a function which you can store in a library for future use

printf_new() {
 str=$1
 num=$2
 v=$(printf "%-${num}s" "$str")
 echo "${v// /*}"
}

Test run:

$ printf_new "*" 20
********************
$ printf_new "*" 10
**********
$ printf_new "%" 10
%%%%%%%%%%