How to remove duplicates only if consecutive in a string? [duplicate]

Answer 1

+1 for groupby. Off the cuff, something like:

from itertools import groupby
def remove_dupes(arg):
    # create generator of distinct characters, ignore grouper objects
    unique = (i[0] for i in groupby(arg))
    return ''.join(unique)

Cooks for me in Python 2.7.2

Answer 2

Microsoft / Amazon job interview type of question: This is the pseudocode, the actual code is left as exercise.

for each char in the string do:
   if the current char is equal to the next char:
      delete next char
   else
     continue

return string

As a more high level, try (not actually the implementation):

for s in string:
  if s == s+1:  ## check until the end of the string
     delete s+1

Answer 3

You can use itertools, here is the one liner

>>> s = '12233322155552'
>>> ''.join(i for i, _ in itertools.groupby(s))
'1232152'