Question

How to convert heyyyy to hey using python regex ?
This is what i got so far

line="heyyy hoooow are you"
word_normalize=compile(r'(\w)\1+')
word_normalize.sub(r'\1\1',line)

which prints hey how are you

i want it to print : hey hoooow are you

i want only the end letters to be shortened not the other parts.

and what if i wanted something like this
hey hoow are you
i.e the end characters don’t repeat and other characters repeat at max 2 times.

Answer 1

Use \b to force the match to be at the end of words.

>>> re.sub(r'(\w)\1+\b', r'\1', line)
'hey hoooow are you'

To get the inner letters to repeat at max two times, add another substitution using \B, which is the opposite of \b:

>>> re.sub(r'(\w)\1+\B', r'\1\1', re.sub(r'(\w)\1+\b', r'\1', line))
'hey hoow are you'