LeetCode: String Compression

Compress strings in place using counts of repeated characters.

Posted on LeetCode Python

Solution

Iā€™m rather proud of this one. šŸ˜Š

Runtime

0 ms | Beats 100.00% 

class Solution:
    def compress(self, chars: List[str]) -> int:
        prev = None
        count = 1
        i = 0
        while i < len(chars):
            if prev == chars[i]:
                count += 1
                chars.pop(i)
            else:
                if count > 1:
                    chars[i:len(str(count))] = str(count)
                    i += len(str(count))


                prev = chars[i]
                count = 1
                i += 1


        if count > 1:
            chars[i:len(str(count))] = str(count)


        return len(chars)