REPEAT (SYSFUN schema) scalar function

Returns a character string composed of the first argument repeated the number of times specified by the second argument.

Read syntax diagramSkip visual syntax diagramREPEAT(expression1, expression2)

The schema is SYSFUN.

expression1
An expression that returns a value of built-in character string, graphic string, or binary string data type. In a Unicode database, the expression can also return a graphic string, in which case it is first converted to a character string before the function is evaluated. The maximum length is:
  • 4000 bytes for a VARCHAR
  • 1,048,576 bytes for a CLOB or binary string
expression2
An expression that returns a value of data type SMALLINT or INTEGER. The returned value specifies the number of times to repeat the string returned by expression1.

Result

The data type of the result is:
  • VARCHAR(4000 OCTETS) if the first expression returns a CHAR or VARCHAR value
  • CLOB(1M OCTETS) if the first expression returns a CLOB value
  • BLOB(1M) if the first expression returns a BLOB value

The result can be null; if any argument is null, the result is the null value.

Examples

List the phrase 'REPEAT THIS' five times. 
   VALUES REPEAT('REPEAT THIS', 5)
This example returns the following VARCHAR(4000 OCTETS) output: 
1
------------------------------------------------------------
REPEAT THISREPEAT THISREPEAT THISREPEAT THISREPEAT THIS
List the phrase 'REPEAT THIS' five times and limit the output to 60 bytes:
   VALUES CHAR(REPEAT('REPEAT THIS', 5), 60)
This example returns the following CHAR(60) output:
1
------------------------------------------------------------
REPEAT THISREPEAT THISREPEAT THISREPEAT THISREPEAT THIS