Overlap in python

[Marcus Wanner]

On 8/4/2009 2:46 PM, Ann wrote:
> On Aug 4, 11:31 am, Marcus Wanner <marc... at cox.net> wrote:
>> On Aug 4, 2:15 pm, Jay Bird <jay.bird0... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>> I've been trying to figure out a simple algorithm on how to combine a
>>> list of parts that have 1D locations that overlap into a non-
>>> overlapping list.  For example, here would be my input:
>>> part name   location
>>> a                  5-9
>>> b                  7-10
>>> c                  3-6
>>> d                  15-20
>>> e                  18-23
>>> And here is what I need for an output:
>>> part name   location
>>> c.a.b            3-10
>>> d.e               15-23
>>> I've tried various methods, which all fail.  Does anyone have an idea
>>> how to do this?
>>> Thank you very much!
>>> Jay
>> Just take all the values, put them in a list, and use min() and max().
>> For example:
>>
>> import string
>>
>> def makelist(values):
>>     values = string.replace(values, ' ', '')
>>     listofvaluepairs = string.split(values, ',')
>>     listofvalues = []
>>     for pair in listofvaluepairs:
>>         twovalues = string.split(pair, '-')
>>         listofvalues.append(int(twovalues[0]))
>>         listofvalues.append(int(twovalues[1]))
>>     return listofvalues
>>
>> values = '5-9, 7-10, 3-6'
>> values = makelist(values)
>> print('Values: %d-%d' %(min(values), max(values)) )
>>
>> Marcus
> 
> Thank you for your help, this is a very nice program but it does not
> address the issue that I have values that do not overlap, for example
> 'c' and 'd' do not overlap in the above example and thus I would not
> want to output 3-20 but the individual positions instead.  In
> addition, my inputs are not ordered from smallest to largest, thus I
> could have a situation where a=5-9, b=15-20, c=7-10, etc., and I would
> still want an output of: a.c = 5-10, b=15-20.  I apologize for the
> complication.
> 
> Thank you again!
> 
> Jay
That would be a bit more complicated...you might try using tuples of 
values in a list, or writing your own class for the data handling. 
Unfortunately that's not something I can just sit down and code in 5 
minutes, it would take some careful thought and planning.

Marcus