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Re: repeating elements in a list

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg54946] Re: [mg54878] repeating elements in a list
• From: "Wolf, Hartmut" <Hartmut.Wolf at t-systems.com>
• Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 05:03:32 -0500 (EST)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Torsten Coym [mailto:torsten.coym at eas.iis.fraunhofer.de] 
To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
>Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 7:34 AM
>Subject: [mg54946] [mg54878] repeating elements in a list
>
>Hello,
>
>suppose I have list
>
>lst={A, B, C}
>
>and I want to create a new list, where all elements are 
>repeated n times 
>so that (for n=3):
>
>newlst={A, A, A, B, B, B, C, C, C}
>
>I have the following code to do this:
>
>n=3;
>newlst=Flatten[Table[Table[lst[[i]], {n}], {i, Length[lst]}]];
>
>but I'm pretty sure, that there must be a more elegant way to 
>solve the 
>problem.
>
>
>thank you
>
>

Torsten,

I wouldn't consider your solution as unelegant, alt least it is quite
clear. 

Instead of Table[ something[[i]], {i, Length[something], you may 
use (# &) /@ something:

In[16]:= Join @@ (Table[#, {n}] &) /@ lst
Out[16]= {A, A, A, B, B, B, C, C, C}

(I used Join @@ expr instead of Flatten[ expr, 1] )


The preferred way to expand a list by repeated elements is PadLeft:
So here, two ways to pad:

In[8]:= Join @@ (PadLeft[{#}, n, #] &) /@ lst
Out[8]= {A, A, A, B, B, B, C, C, C}

In[15]:=
Join @@ With[{ll = Partition[lst, 1]}, PadLeft[ll, {Length[ll], n}, ll]]
Out[15]= {A, A, A, B, B, B, C, C, C}


The last expression exploits the possibilities of the built-in function
PadLeft, which normally is prefereable, as this recurses less to the
Mathematica mainloop, avoiding all time-consuming checks therein. So I
prefer this, but from the viewpoint of elegance? I just repeat my so
often asked (but never answered) question: what is elegance?

--
Hartmut Wolf