Question

Given a datatable of single day dates (dd-mm-yyyy), (shown below on the left).

What’s most elegant way to transform this into a collection of ranges, grouping consecutive days for each type (show on the right) ?

We can assume initial data is sorted by TypeID, then Date.

TypeID  | Date            ->   TypeID  | Start      | End
1       | 01/02/2010           1       | 01/02/2010 | 03/02/2010
1       | 02/02/2010           2       | 03/02/2010 | 04/02/2010
1       | 03/02/2010           2       | 06/02/2010 | 06/02/2010
2       | 03/02/2010
2       | 04/02/2010
2       | 06/02/2010

I’m not particularity up on my LINQ, but I was thinking that might be the way to go?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Sure somebody will come up with a neat LINQ solution but here’s my old style solution. Sure it’s got problems and won’t cope with every combination, cobbled together and solves the problem but not elegant in any way 🙁

internal class SourceData
{
    public int TypeId { get; set; }
    public DateTime Date { get; set; }
}

internal class Result
{
    public int TypeId { get; set; }
    public DateTime StartDate { get; set; }
    public DateTime EndDate { get; set; }
}

class Program
{

    static void Main()
    {

        var a = new List<SourceData> {
            new SourceData {TypeId = 1, Date = new DateTime(2010, 02, 01)},
            new SourceData {TypeId = 1, Date = new DateTime(2010, 02, 02)},
            new SourceData {TypeId = 1, Date = new DateTime(2010, 02, 03)}, 
            new SourceData {TypeId = 2, Date = new DateTime(2010, 02, 03)}, 
            new SourceData {TypeId = 2, Date = new DateTime(2010, 02, 04)}, 
            new SourceData {TypeId = 2, Date = new DateTime(2010, 02, 06)} 
        };

        var results = new List<Result>();
        int currentTypeId = 1;
        var rangeEndDate = new DateTime();

        DateTime rangeStartDate = a[0].Date;
        DateTime currentDate = a[0].Date;

        for (int i = 1; i < a.Count() ; i++)
        {

            if (a[i].TypeId != currentTypeId)
            {
                results.Add(new Result() { TypeId = currentTypeId, StartDate = rangeStartDate, EndDate = rangeEndDate });
                currentTypeId += 1;                    
                rangeStartDate = a[i].Date;
            }

            TimeSpan tSpan = a[i].Date - currentDate;
            int differenceInDays = tSpan.Days;

            if(differenceInDays > 1)
            {
                results.Add(new Result { TypeId = currentTypeId, StartDate = rangeStartDate, EndDate = a[i-1].Date });
                rangeStartDate = a[i].Date;
            }

            rangeEndDate = a[i].Date;
            currentDate = a[i].Date;
        }

        results.Add(new Result { TypeId = currentTypeId, StartDate = rangeStartDate, EndDate = rangeEndDate });

        Console.WriteLine("Output\n");
        foreach (var r in results)
            Console.WriteLine( string.Format( "{0} - {1} - {2}",r.TypeId,r.StartDate.ToShortDateString(),r.EndDate.ToShortDateString()));

        Console.ReadLine();

    }
}

Gives the following output :-

Output

1 – 01/02/2010 – 03/02/2010

2 – 03/02/2010 – 04/02/2010

2 – 06/02/2010 – 06/02/2010