Identify groups of continuous numbers in a list

Question

I\'d like to identify groups of continuous numbers in a list, so that:

myfunc([2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20])

Returns:

Answer 1

Using numpy + comprehension lists:
With numpy diff function, consequent input vector entries that their difference is not equal to one can be identified. The start and end of the input vector need to be considered.

import numpy as np
data = np.array([2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20])

d = [i for i, df in enumerate(np.diff(data)) if df!= 1] 
d = np.hstack([-1, d, len(data)-1])  # add first and last elements 
d = np.vstack([d[:-1]+1, d[1:]]).T

print(data[d])

Output:

 [[ 2  5]   
  [12 17]   
  [20 20]]

Note: The request that individual numbers should be treated differently, (returned as individual, not ranges) was omitted. This can be reached by further post-processing the results. Usually this will make things more complex without gaining any benefit.

Answer 2

A short solution that works without additional imports. It accepts any iterable, sorts unsorted inputs, and removes duplicate items:

def ranges(nums):
    nums = sorted(set(nums))
    gaps = [[s, e] for s, e in zip(nums, nums[1:]) if s+1 < e]
    edges = iter(nums[:1] + sum(gaps, []) + nums[-1:])
    return list(zip(edges, edges))

Example:

>>> ranges([2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 15])
[(2, 4), (7, 9), (15, 15)]

>>> ranges([-1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 15, 100])
[(-1, 3), (12, 13), (15, 15), (100, 100)]

>>> ranges(range(100))
[(0, 99)]

>>> ranges([0])
[(0, 0)]

>>> ranges([])
[]

This is the same as @dansalmo's solution which I found amazing, albeit a bit hard to read and apply (as it's not given as a function).

Note that it could easily be modified to spit out "traditional" open ranges [start, end), by e.g. altering the return statement:

    return [(s, e+1) for s, e in zip(edges, edges)]

I copied this answer over from another question that was marked as a duplicate of this one with the intention to make it easier findable (after I just now searched again for this topic, finding only the question here at first and not being satisfied with the answers given).

Answer 3

Here it is something that should work, without any import needed:

def myfunc(lst):
    ret = []
    a = b = lst[0]                           # a and b are range's bounds

    for el in lst[1:]:
        if el == b+1: 
            b = el                           # range grows
        else:                                # range ended
            ret.append(a if a==b else (a,b)) # is a single or a range?
            a = b = el                       # let's start again with a single
    ret.append(a if a==b else (a,b))         # corner case for last single/range
    return ret

Answer 4

EDIT 2: To answer the OP new requirement

ranges = []
for key, group in groupby(enumerate(data), lambda (index, item): index - item):
    group = map(itemgetter(1), group)
    if len(group) > 1:
        ranges.append(xrange(group[0], group[-1]))
    else:
        ranges.append(group[0])

Output:

[xrange(2, 5), xrange(12, 17), 20]

You can replace xrange with range or any other custom class.

---

Python docs have a very neat recipe for this:

from operator import itemgetter
from itertools import groupby
data = [2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17]
for k, g in groupby(enumerate(data), lambda (i,x):i-x):
    print map(itemgetter(1), g)

Output:

[2, 3, 4, 5]
[12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17]

If you want to get the exact same output, you can do this:

ranges = []
for k, g in groupby(enumerate(data), lambda (i,x):i-x):
    group = map(itemgetter(1), g)
    ranges.append((group[0], group[-1]))

output:

[(2, 5), (12, 17)]

---

EDIT: The example is already explained in the documentation but maybe I should explain it more:

The key to the solution is differencing with a range so that consecutive numbers all appear in same group.

If the data was: [2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17] Then groupby(enumerate(data), lambda (i,x):i-x) is equivalent of the following:

groupby(
    [(0, 2), (1, 3), (2, 4), (3, 5), (4, 12),
    (5, 13), (6, 14), (7, 15), (8, 16), (9, 17)],
    lambda (i,x):i-x
)

The lambda function subtracts the element index from the element value. So when you apply the lambda on each item. You'll get the following keys for groupby:

[-2, -2, -2, -2, -8, -8, -8, -8, -8, -8]

groupby groups elements by equal key value, so the first 4 elements will be grouped together and so forth.

I hope this makes it more readable.

python 3 version may be helpful for beginners

import the libraries required first

from itertools import groupby
from operator import itemgetter

ranges =[]

for k,g in groupby(enumerate(data),lambda x:x[0]-x[1]):
    group = (map(itemgetter(1),g))
    group = list(map(int,group))
    ranges.append((group[0],group[-1]))

Answer 5

This doesn't use a standard function - it just iiterates over the input, but it should work:

def myfunc(l):
    r = []
    p = q = None
    for x in l + [-1]:
        if x - 1 == q:
            q += 1
        else:
            if p:
               if q > p:
                   r.append('%s-%s' % (p, q))
               else:
                   r.append(str(p))
            p = q = x
    return '(%s)' % ', '.join(r)

Note that it requires that the input contains only positive numbers in ascending order. You should validate the input, but this code is omitted for clarity.

Answer 6

Please note that the code using groupby doesn't work as given in Python 3 so use this.

for k, g in groupby(enumerate(data), lambda x:x[0]-x[1]):
    group = list(map(itemgetter(1), g))
    ranges.append((group[0], group[-1]))