Pythonic way to convert a list of integers into a string of comma-separated ranges

Question

I have a list of integers which I need to parse into a string of ranges.

For example:

 [0, 1, 2, 3] -> \"0-3\"
 [0, 1, 2, 4, 8] -> \"0-2,4,8\"
         


        

Answer 1

def createRangeString(zones):
    """Create a string with integer ranges in the format of '%d-%d'
    >>> createRangeString([0, 1, 2, 4, 8])
    "0-2,4,8"
    >>> createRangeString([1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,12,13,19,20,22,22,22,23,40,44])
    "1-4,6-9,12-13,19-20,22-23,40,44"
    """
    buffer = []

    try:
        st = ed = zones[0]
        for i in zones[1:]:
            delta = i - ed
            if delta == 1: ed = i
            elif not (delta == 0):
                buffer.append((st, ed))
                st = ed = i
        else: buffer.append((st, ed))
    except IndexError:
        pass

    return ','.join(
            "%d" % st if st==ed else "%d-%d" % (st, ed)
            for st, ed in buffer)