"Removing" Duplicate spaces from a char array java
<p>I'm attempting to create a method which will take a char array, cut out any duplicate spaces (2 or more) and then place <code>'\u0000'</code> characters at the end for however many spaces were cut out so that the array length is satisfied. I realize I have to shift the elements down but this is where I'm having trouble. My program works fine with 2 spaces but a sequence of three in a row will throw it off. I understand why this is happening but I don't know how to fix it. I know it stems from the code <code>characters[j] = characters[j+1]</code> but I don't know how to go about fixing it.<br></p>

<pre><code>int duplicateCount = 0;
// Create a loop to read the element values
for(int i = 0; i + 1 &lt; characters.length; i++){
    // If the element is a space and the next one is a space
    if(characters[i] == ' ' &amp;&amp; characters[i+1] == ' '){
        // Add to duplicate count and start shifting values down
        duplicateCount++;
        // *THIS IS WHERE I THINK BUG IS*
        for(int j = i; j &lt; characters.length - 1; j++){
            characters[j] = characters[j+1];
            }
        }
    }
    // Replace characters at end with how many duplicates were found
    for(int replace = characters.length - duplicateCount; replace &lt; characters.length; replace++){
        characters[replace] = '\u0000';
    }
}
</code></pre>

<p>Thank you all.</p>