Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!psuvm!blekul11!ffaac09
From: FFAAC09@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be (Nicole Delbecque & Paul Bijnens)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: repeated character editing
Message-ID: <91089.144544FFAAC09@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be>
Date: 30 Mar 91 14:44:43 GMT
References: <1991Mar28.181335.7813@cbnewsm.att.com>
 <1991Mar29.145724.5569@cbnewsm.att.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: K.U.Leuven - Academic Computing Center
Lines: 34

In article <1991Mar29.145724.5569@cbnewsm.att.com>, cadman@cbnewsm.att.com
(jerome.schwartz) says:
>
>In article <1991Mar28.181335.7813@cbnewsm.att.com>, cadman@cbnewsm.att.com
>(jerome.schwartz) writes:
>>
>> How would I do a simple edit command, vi map or sed script, to
>> replace all occurrences of repeated characters in a file with one
>> of each of the characters.
>>
>> ie:   This:   AAAAPPPPLLLLEEEE   ppppiiiieeee
>>    to this:   APPLE pie
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Jerry
>
>The example should have been:
>
>AAAAPPPPPPPPLLLLEEEE ppppiiiieeee
>
>With 2 sets of 4 P's.
>
>Still with no success,

The slighty changed problem has the next solution:

   sed -e 's/\(.\)\1\1\1/\1/g' inputfile > outfile

This changes 4 repeates of the same letter to 1 letter.
It leaves all the other letters (the space in your example) as is.
--
Polleke   (Paul Bijnens)
Linguistics dept., K. University Leuven, Belgium
FFAAC09@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be