repeat

The repeat() function will repeat a string the specified number of times.

repeat(string, number)

string.repeat(number)
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

If you specify a non-string data type as the first argument, it will be converted to a string before being repeated.

123.repeat(3) /* Output: "123123123" */

false.repeat(3) /* Output: "falsefalsefalse" */Code language: CSS (css)

Example Formulas

"This is " + "very ".repeat(3).split(" ").join(", ") + " good."
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

For Loops with repeat()

The repeat() function has a clever trick up its sleeve – you can use it to essentially create for loops within Notion formulas!

Notion’s formula language doesn’t include actual looping functions, unlike most programming languages. For example, JavaScript makes it easy:

const arr = []

for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
  const number = i * 2;
  arr.push(number);
}
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

However, you can combine repeat() with split to replicate this functionality:

"."
  .repeat(10)
  .split(".")
  .map(
    index * 2
  )
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

This is about the simplest demonstration of this trick.

A . character is repeated 10 times to create the string “……….”, which is then split on the same character to create a List of length 10. Finally, we map through the list, multiplying each item’s index by 2.

You can see a more in-depth example at my For Loops with Custom Number of Iterations example formula page.