How to split a string to to merge the repeat items together in python3

Question

How to split a string in the following way:

a = "111554222117"

My goal is to split string into several pieces, where the continuous repeated will grouped together. The output will be a list

b = ['111','55','4','222','11','7']

PS: not tool can be used like itertools since this is an interview question.

My attempt is to use at least two for loop, but it is not effective. how to use only one loop.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can just use itertools and list comprehensions for this.

import itertools

[''.join(data) for _, data in itertools.groupby("111554222117")]

To know more about this you can have a look at the following video:-