Review: Remove Duplicates

Module 4: IDEs & Tools

Remove Duplicates

Write a Python function to remove repeated consecutive characters and replace them with single letters and return the updated string.

Example:

• Input: (“Red Green White”) -> Output: “Red Gren White”
• Input: (“aabbbcdeffff”) -> Output: “abcdef”

Solution

Try the exercise on your own first, then compare with the worked solution below.

# Solution 1

def remove_duplicates(s):
  """
  Removes repeated consecutive characters in a string
  """
  result = ""
  for char in s:
    if not result or char != result[-1]:
      result += char
  return result

# Test the function with the provided examples
test1 = "Red Green White"
result1 = remove_duplicates(test1)
print(result1)

test2 = "aabbbcdeffff"
result2 = remove_duplicates(test2)
print(result2)

# Solution 2

def remove_duplicates(s):
  """
  Removes repeated consecutive characters in a string
  """
  empty_ls = []

  for i in range(0, len(s)-1):
      if s[i] != s[i+1]:
          empty_ls.append(s[i])
  return "".join(empty_ls) + s[-1]

# Test the function with the provided examples
test1 = "Red Green White"
result1 = remove_duplicates(test1)
print(result1)

test2 = "aabbbcdeffff"
result2 = remove_duplicates(test2)
print(result2)