Built-in functions : makearray function

makearray(X,N)

Makes an array consisting of N lots of X

Input: any type, numeric

Result: array of same type

Examples:

makearray(7, 3) --> [7, 7, 7]

makearray([rand_var(0, 1), rand_var(0, 5)], 5) --> [[0.62352, 2.43459], [0.11933, 0.423529], [0.94208, 4.43623], [0.40088, 1.63023], [0.11769, 4.97782]]

Comments:

This is an array constructor. The first argument can be any expression, and the second is an integer. The result is an array, each of whose elements is generated by evaluating the first argument. The size of the array is the value of the second argument, which must be a constant. If the first argument is an array, the result will be an array of arrays. See also the place_in function, which is used in complex constructions with makearray.

Use of makearray() is called explicit replication. It differs from implicit replication in that the expression being replicated is evaluated separately for each member of the generated array, including any implicit (but not explicit) intermediate results. This means that no attempt is made to combine the dimensions of the two arguments. The second argument must be a scalar integer, and the result will be an array whose outermost dimension is that value, and whose inner dimensions are the dimensions of the first argument.

makearray() could have been designed to work differently on an array first argument, replicating each element rather than the whole array. As in the case of implicit replication, the actual behaviour was chosen to be that which would be hardest to achieve by combining other functions. If you need to replicate the elements of an array, you can first split it up with the element() function then rejoin the results with makearray, e.g., makearray(makearray(element([3,6,9],place_in(2)),2),3) -> [[3,3],[6,6],[9,9]], whereas if makearray itself worked like this, it would be very hard to get its actual behaviour.