Problem 44313. "Cody" * 5 == "CodyCodyCodyCodyCody"

Created by Peng Liu

Solve Later

Alice: What? "Cody" * 5 == "CodyCodyCodyCodyCody"? You've gotta be kidding me!

Bob: No, I am serious! Python supports such "multiplication" of strings, which actually means replication of strings!

Alice: Really?

Bob: Modern languages (C++, Java, Python, etc) tend to use native operators (via overloading) to perform simple string manipulations, such as + for string concatenation (e.g., "Cody" + "Cody" == "CodyCody"). Also, Python adopts * to perform string replication. Since R2016b, MATLAB has followed the same convention by introducing the + operator to perform string concatenation (See Problem 43663 for a Cody example). Nevertheless, as of R2017b, there is no support for the * operator (or any other operators) which performs string replication in MATLAB.

Alice: Sounds like there is a gap...

Bob: You got it. Now, I'd like you to fill the gap by using whatever method (preferably overloading) to make * perform string replication in Cody (similar to * in Python), e.g.,

>> "Cody" * 2
ans = 
    "CodyCody"

>> 3 * "Cody"
  ans = 
      "CodyCodyCody"

Alice: Gotcha. Let me give it a try.

Solve

Solution Stats

2022 Solutions
366 Solvers

Last Solution submitted on Jul 05, 2020

Last 200 Solutions

Problem Comments

2 Comments

2 Comments

Andrew Newell on 1 Dec 2017

It's a little scary redefining mtimes this way! As soon as I solved it, I deleted the function.

Rafael Siqueira Telles Vieira on 4 Jul 2020 at 6:30

Cody is not allowing overloading the built-in function mtimes.

Solution Comments

Solution 2227660

1 Comment

1 Comment

Wayne on 21 Apr 2020

I'm kind of hung up. function y=mtimes(a,b) works just fine on my computer running 2018a. However when used here, Cody gripes at me about using a different function name since mtimes is built in and fails me. Changing the name to something else (asdf, for instance) fails since I haven't modified mtimes to handle strings. What am I missing?

Solution 2173746

3 Comments

3 Comments

Binbin Qi on 25 Mar 2020

cheat!?

Asif Newaz on 26 Mar 2020

I thought this problem is no longer solvable since mtimes is a built-in function. There might be a way that I don't know of

Binbin Qi on 26 Mar 2020

@Asif, I see, sorry

Solution 1292282

1 Comment

1 Comment

T. Dunker on 17 Oct 2017

Actually, this is not a correct solution. The else branch leads to infinite recursion.

Problem Recent Solvers366

Problem Tags

cody5 multiplication string