Showing unique characters in a string only once

Question

I have a string with repeated letters. I want letters that are repeated more than once to show only once. For instance I have a string aaabbbccc i want the result to be abc.

Answer 1

You can use a regular expression with a custom replacement function:

function unique_char(string) {
    return string.replace(/(.)\1*/g, function(sequence, char) {
         if (sequence.length == 1) // if the letter doesn't repeat
             return ""; // its not shown
         if (sequence.length == 2) // if its repeated once
             return char; // its show only once (if aa shows a)
         if (sequence.length == 3) // if its repeated twice
             return sequence; // shows all(if aaa shows aaa)
         if (sequence.length == 4) // if its repeated 3 times
             return Array(7).join(char); // it shows 6( if aaaa shows aaaaaa)
         // else ???
         return sequence;
    });
}