Java String Manipulation : Comparing adjacent Characters in Java

Question

i have the following problem
Given a string, return a \"cleaned\" string where adjacent chars that are the same have been reduced to a single char. So \"yyzzza\"

Answer 1

How about:

public String stringClean(String str) {
  if (str.length() < 2)return str; 

  String nextStr = str.substring(1);

  if (str.charAt(0) == str.charAt(1)) {
    return stringClean(nextStr);
  }

  else return str.substring(0,1) +  stringClean(nextStr);
}