Emacs repeat string n times

string emacs command repeat editing
sammy34 picture sammy34 · Jul 27, 2013 · Viewed 10.5k times · Source

I'm learning the basics of navigating/editing in Emacs and I'm curious how one could accomplish the following task:

  • Repeat the string 'bla ' n times in normal text editing mode.

Let's say I want to repeat it five times to generate 'bla bla bla bla bla '. I tried...

C-u 5 bla

...but the command executes after the 'b' is entered, and I only get 'bbbbb'.

I'm sure there's some basic command that can help me here...would somebody be kind enough to enlighten me :)?

Answer

Keith Flower picture Keith Flower · Jul 27, 2013

One way is via a keyboard macro:

C-x (bla C-x)C-u4C-xe

You can also just insert the repeat count before the macro termination:

C-x (bla C-u5C-x)

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