Lisp format a character a number of times

Question

I am looking for a way to output a character a number of times using format. Is this possible? Can someone fill in the _?_\'s, so that the example works?

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Answer 1

(format nil "~a~:*~a~:*~a~:*" #\*)
"***"

Or elaborating a bit on Joshua Taylor's answer:

(format nil "~v{~a~:*~}" 3 '(#\*))

Would be one way of doing this. Don't be confused by the asterisks in the format directive, they are control characters, not characters being printed.

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In terms of efficiency, however, this:

(make-string 3 :initial-element #\*)

would be a preferred way to achieve the same effect.