title: How to repeat individual characters in strings in Python
body: <p>I know that </p>
  
  <pre><code>"123abc" * 2
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>evaluates as <code>"123abc123abc"</code>, but is there an easy way to repeat individual letters N times, e.g. convert <code>"123abc"</code> to <code>"112233aabbcc"</code> or <code>"111222333aaabbbccc"</code>?</p>