How to replace repeated instances of a character with a single instance of that character in python

Question

I want to replace repeated instances of the \"*\" character within a string with a single instance of \"*\". For example if the string is \"*

Answer 1

You wrote:

pattern.replace("*"\*, "*")

You meant:

pattern.replace("\**", "*")
#                ^^^^

You really meant:

pattern_after_substitution= re.sub(r"\*+", "*", pattern)

which does what you wanted.