9
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'---------'
'-'.repeat(9) // longer!

'------------'
(x='----')+x+x
'-'.repeat(12) // same length

Is there any cleverer way of generating strings of 12 repeated characters in JavaScript?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Don't think so but depending on the challenge you may be able to golf multiple runs to save bytes using e.g. RLE \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2017 at 11:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ For the special case of commas you can do Array(12)+'', which is shorter than the literal starting at 11 commas and then remains shorter than repeat. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2017 at 11:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ @SteveBennett sometimes you only care about the string length and not the actual character, and many PPCG challenges allow you to use some ASCII character of your choice for output. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2017 at 12:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ If you're going to be reusing repeat, you can alias it. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2017 at 12:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ If you don't really need 12 identical characters but rather a 12-character string, you can also do 1e11+''. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2017 at 12:47

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Unfortunately, after what seems an eternity of searching documentation, I can't seem find any solution that will work with the 12-character constraint and generate for any given character given. However, there are a few neat tricks one can do to save some bytes for specific cases:

  • 1eL-1+'' will give a string, filled with 9s, of L length.
  • ''.padEnd(L) will give a string, filled with spaces, of L length. It's only useful when L > 10, otherwise it's too long. This one can be immediately chained with a function.
  • N/9+'' will give a string, starting with 0. then followed by a bunch of Ns. This does not work when N < 1 or N > 8, and the result obviously does not contain the same characters the whole way, but pretty close and pretty short.
  • Array(L)+'' will give a string, filled with commas, of length L - 1.
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    \$\begingroup\$ Along the lines of your 1/3+'' tip, you can repeat a digit D (except 0 and 9) a bunch of times similarly with D/9+''. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 0:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ Array(L)+'' gives L-1 length, right? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 5:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ Which means that for L=13, the code is 12 characters and the output is 12 characters, so the same as ','.repeat(12) \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 6:11

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