This one would be faster 

 $text =~ s/(.)\1{3,}/$1$1$1/gs;

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Updated: It is faster because it makes one substitution per char sequence. It replaces four or more repeated characters by three at one time.

In reply to Re: More efficient way to truncate long strings of the same character by ccn
in thread More efficient way to truncate long strings of the same character by kurtis

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