Create a compress function in Python?

Question

I need to create a function called compress that compresses a string by replacing any repeated letters with a letter and number. My function should return the shortened vers

Answer 1

Just another simplest way to perform this:

def compress(str1):
    output = ''
    initial = str1[0]
    output = output + initial
    count = 1
    for item in str1[1:]:
        if item == initial:
            count = count + 1
        else:
            if count == 1:
                count = ''
            output = output + str(count)
            count = 1
            initial = item
            output = output + item
    print (output)

Which gives the output as required, examples:

>> compress("aaaaaaaccffffddeehhyiiiuuo")
a7c2d4e2h2yi3u2o

>> compress("lllhhjuuuirrdtt")
l3h2ju3ir2dt

>> compress("mississippi")
mis2is2ip2i