For a coding interview, where it was about the algorithm, and not about my knowledge of Python, its internal representation of data structures, or the time complexity of operations such as string concatenation:
def compress(message: str) -> str:
output = ""
length = 0
previous: str = None
for char in message:
if previous is None or char == previous:
length += 1
else:
output += previous
if length > 1:
output += str(length)
length = 1
previous = char
if previous is not None:
output += previous
if length > 1:
output += str(length)
return output
For code I'd actually use in production, not reinventing any wheels, being more testable, using iterators until the last step for space efficiency, and using join()
instead of string concatenation for time efficiency:
from itertools import groupby
from typing import Iterator
def compressed_groups(message: str) -> Iterator[str]:
for char, group in groupby(message):
length = sum(1 for _ in group)
yield char + (str(length) if length > 1 else "")
def compress(message: str) -> str:
return "".join(compressed_groups(message))
Taking things a step further, for even more testability:
from itertools import groupby
from typing import Iterator
from collections import namedtuple
class Segment(namedtuple('Segment', ['char', 'length'])):
def __str__(self) -> str:
return self.char + (str(self.length) if self.length > 1 else "")
def segments(message: str) -> Iterator[Segment]:
for char, group in groupby(message):
yield Segment(char, sum(1 for _ in group))
def compress(message: str) -> str:
return "".join(str(s) for s in segments(message))
Going all-out and providing a Value Object CompressedString
:
from itertools import groupby
from typing import Iterator
from collections import namedtuple
class Segment(namedtuple('Segment', ['char', 'length'])):
def __str__(self) -> str:
return self.char + (str(self.length) if self.length > 1 else "")
class CompressedString(str):
@classmethod
def compress(cls, message: str) -> "CompressedString":
return cls("".join(str(s) for s in cls._segments(message)))
@staticmethod
def _segments(message: str) -> Iterator[Segment]:
for char, group in groupby(message):
yield Segment(char, sum(1 for _ in group))
def compress(message: str) -> str:
return CompressedString.compress(message)