this works :) also made me smile , thanks! :)

:)

Thanks for your comment as it pointed me in the right direction! since starting codewars I have realised the importance of looking for patterns in test examples!

very good thinking :) nice one!

:) sorry cannot follow your theory... i need to get more clever!! :) i appreciated reading it though so thanks for that :) i just saw input(n)=10, output=9 aka 10-1 (n-1)!!

cheers for your advice and help, much appreciated :) (I have been able to get my solution, as I read another comment which pointed me in the right direction!) thanks!

My error, silly me. Thanks for pointing this out, I have reset now and can see it!

Whilst I have your attention.... please can you give me a pointer as to where I am going wrong with my code attempts?:)

cheers for reply, i am using python 3.8.

when i press test i pass the top 2 but fail number 3: '97777' should equal '7777'

i have tried using re.sub and str.replace.

can i show you my code? if so how do I put it on here and mark as spoiler?

for the 3rd sample test: ('9797797') = '7777'

why does the first 9 (index 0) qualify for removal as it is not between two 7's it is just before one 7 ?!

my code output gives 97777 and it is annoying me :)

Thank you for your efforts, this is making my head hurt :) nice one! :)

same here with my code, I also tried the most upvoted solution and same thing happened :)

ha ha! it took me so long to count them the first time, i dont want to do it again 😄 i take your word for it! 👍