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

Well regular expressions wise I would do exactly as JoshD has suggested. But one improvement here.

Use -

regex  = re.compile('\*+')
result = re.sub(regex, "*", string)

This would essentially cache your regex. So subsequent usage of this in a loop would make your regex operations fast.