compress()

Compress a string using a simple run-length encoding.

Implementation

This method compresses the input string by replacing sequences of repeated characters with a single instance of the character followed by a number indicating the count of repetitions. Args: word: The input string to be compressed Returns: A compressed version of the input string

Example

compress("aaabbbccc")

Expected output: '3a3b3c'

Source Code

                        def compress(word: str) -> str:
    if not word:
        return ""

    comp = []  # Use a list for faster concatenation
    length = len(word)
    i = 0

    while i < length:
        count = 1
        # Count up to 9 consecutive characters
        while i + count < length and word[i] == word[i + count] and count < 9:
            count += 1

        # Append the count and character to comp
        comp.append(f"{count}{word[i]}")

        # Move to the next distinct character
        i += count

    return "".join(comp)  # Join the list into a single string at the end
                    