Python re.sub to replace 3 or more of same character with 1

Question

I\'m trying to find characters that are repeated 3 times or more, for example I want to take the following strings:

(\'aaa\', \'buuuuut\',

Answer 1

Look at this:

>>> mystr = 'buuuuuttttt'
>>> re.sub(r'(.)\1{2,}', r'\1', mystr)
'but'
>>> mystr = 'buttt'
>>> re.sub(r'(.)\1{2,}', r'\1', mystr)
'but'
>>>