Emacs repeat string n times

Question

I'm learning the basics of navigating/editing in Emacs and I'm curious how one could accomplish the following task:

• Repeat the string 'bla ' n times in normal text editing mode.

Let's say I want to repeat it five times to generate 'bla bla bla bla bla '. I tried...

C-u 5 bla

...but the command executes after the 'b' is entered, and I only get 'bbbbb'.

I'm sure there's some basic command that can help me here...would somebody be kind enough to enlighten me :)?

Answer 1

One way is via a keyboard macro:

C-x (bla C-x)C-u4C-xe

You can also just insert the repeat count before the macro termination:

C-x (bla C-u5C-x)

Answer 2

You can do it with keyboard macros: f3blaM-5 f4.

1. f3 means "start recording"
2. then you insert bla
3. M-5 means "5 times"
4. f4 means finish

Alternate to M-5 f4 is just f4 a bunch of times.