a) spreadMethod="repeat" A repeating linear gradient The gradient starts dark, slowly shifting to light, then quickly dark again. This pattern repeats four times left to right, each time brightening across a large region and then getting dark within a short space. b) spreadMethod="reflect" A reflecting linear gradient The gradient again starts dark, slowly shifting to light, then quickly dark again. However, the next repeat shifts quickly to the light, then slowly back dark. The original pattern is then repeated, followed by the reflected version again.
Figure 1: Repeating SVG gradients

A repeating SVG gradient is defined using the spreadMethod attribute. A value of repeat causes the color stops to repeat in the same order, from beginning to end, as shown in Figure 1-a.

In contrast, a value of reflect causes the order and spacing of colors to alternate in each repeat, as in Figure 1-b.

Both of the gradients in Figure 1 repeat the sequence of color stops four times, with the initial cycle from left to right.