How can I obtain a string of characters of the same length of another string?

Question

Suppose, I have a string

ContactMap(const core::data::structural::Structure &structure, double cutoff_distance, core::data::structural::selectors::AtomSelector_SP atoms_in_contact=nullptr)

I need to create a string of * (asterisks) of the same length.

I can think of the following two techniques:

1. calculate the length of the string, and use a for loop to create a string of the same length
2. take a copy of the string, and replace each character with an * (asterisk)

Do you have any other ideas?

What is the fastest way to do this?

Answer 1

Luckily Python allows to multiply a string and an integer:

string = 'abc'
print('*' * len(string))

outputs

***

Answer 2

You can use this:

string = "ContactMap(const core::data::structural::Structure &structure, double cutoff_distance, core::data::structural::selectors::AtomSelector_SP atoms_in_contact=nullptr)"
print(string)
print("*" * (len(string)))

If you try it, you can see that the string and line of * are exactly the same length.