removing consecutive duplicate characters

[qazmlp1209]

Is there a simple/direct way of removing the consecutive duplicate
characters in a String?
Assume I have a string like this:
abc**de**fg

It should be changed as:
abc*de*fg

 

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Is there a simple/direct way of removing the consecutive duplicate

characters in a String?
Assume I have a string like this:
abc**de**fg

It should be changed as:
abc*de*fg

something like this:

String removeCDChars(String s) {
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
//add first char
char lastChar = s.charAt(0);
sb.append(lastChar);

int len = sb.size();

for(int i = 1; i < len; i++) {
char c = s.charAt(i);
if(c != lastChar) {
sb.append(c);
lastChar = c;
}
}

return sb.toString();
}

 

[Oliver Wong]

something like this:

String removeCDChars(String s) {
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
//add first char
char lastChar = s.charAt(0);
sb.append(lastChar);

int len = sb.size();

for(int i = 1; i < len; i++) {
char c = s.charAt(i);
if(c != lastChar) {
sb.append(c);
lastChar = c;
}
}

return sb.toString();
}

The method will fail on the empty string. It also might not handle
unicode strings with characters outside the basic multilingual plane too
well. But otherwise, this is essentially the algorithm I'd recommend as
well.

- Oliver

 

[qazmlp1209]

String removeCDChars(String s) {

StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
//add first char
char lastChar = s.charAt(0);
sb.append(lastChar);

int len = sb.size();

int len = s.length();
After the above change, the code works perfectly fine(with the
exception to what Oliver has quoted).

 

[Roedy Green]

StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

if you are using JDK 1.5+ of course you would use a StringBuilder
instead.

 

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

int len = s.length();
right, conclusion - don't try to programm in outlook ;-)

After the above change, the code works perfectly fine(with the
exception to what Oliver has quoted).

hmm, yes, I should add check for empty String.

Andrey