I am currently working on a C# program where I have the need to combine a bunch of time ranges. For each range I have the start and end time. I found an example where this was being done in Ruby but not for C#. I am basically looking for the time range union. I feel like there might be a way to do this using linq but I cant come up with it. Any ideas?
So for example
Start Time: 1:30
End Time: 2:00
Start Time: 1:45
End Time: 2:30
Start Time: 3:00
End Time: 5:00
Start Time: 4:00
End Time: 4:30
Start Time: 4:45
End Time: 5:30
This set of times would come back as
Start Time: 1:30
End Time: 2:30
Start Time: 3:00
End Time: 5:30
You could have a look at this project which supports TimeRanges
and intersection methods:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/168662/Time-Period-Library-for-NET
This looked fun so I started coding something.
public class TimeRanges
{
private List<TimeRange> _mergedTimeRanges = new List<TimeRange>();
public void Add(TimeRange timeRange)
{
if(!_mergedTimeRanges.Any(x=>x.IsOverLap(timeRange)))
{
_mergedTimeRanges.Add(timeRange);
return;
}
while (_mergedTimeRanges.Any(x => x.IsOverLap(timeRange) && x!=timeRange))
{
TimeRange toMergeRange = _mergedTimeRanges.First(x => x.IsOverLap(timeRange));
toMergeRange.Merge(timeRange);
timeRange = toMergeRange;
}
}
public IEnumerable<TimeRange> GetMergedRanges()
{
return _mergedTimeRanges;
}
}
public class TimeRange
{
public DateTime Start { get; private set; }
public DateTime End { get; private set; }
public TimeRange(DateTime start, DateTime end)
{
if (start >= end)
throw new ArgumentException("Invalid time range, end must be later than start");
Start = start;
End = end;
}
public void Merge(TimeRange timeRange)
{
if (!IsOverLap(timeRange))
throw new ArgumentException("Cannot merge timeranges that don't overlap", "timeRange");
if (End < timeRange.End)
End = timeRange.End;
if (timeRange.Start < Start)
Start = timeRange.Start;
}
public bool IsOverLap(TimeRange timeRange)
{
if (timeRange.End < Start)
return false;
if (timeRange.Start > End)
return false;
return true;
}
public bool Equals(TimeRange other)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(null, other)) return false;
if (ReferenceEquals(this, other)) return true;
return other.Start.Equals(Start) && other.End.Equals(End);
}
public override bool Equals(object obj)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(null, obj)) return false;
if (ReferenceEquals(this, obj)) return true;
if (obj.GetType() != typeof (TimeRange)) return false;
return Equals((TimeRange) obj);
}
public override int GetHashCode()
{
unchecked
{
return (Start.GetHashCode()*397) ^ End.GetHashCode();
}
}
}
I have a couple of tests for it if anyone would be interested
Johan Larsson's answer helped me a lot.
I used it, and hit an infinite while loop in the following case so I thought I'd contribute.
Start Time: 1:30 End Time: 2:00
Start Time: 2:45 End Time: 4:00
Start Time: 1:45 End Time: 3:00 (overlaps the first two ranges)
So here is a condensed version of what I came up with:
private static IEnumerable<TimeRange> MergeTimeRanges(IEnumerable<TimeRange> ranges)
{
var mergedRanges = new List<TimeRange>();
foreach (var range in ranges)
{
var overlapping = mergedRanges.Where(r => !(range.End < r.Start) && !(range.Start> r.End)).ToArray();
if (overlapping.Length == 0)
{
mergedRanges.Add(range);
}
else
{
// add a new range made up of the overlapping ranges plus the new range, then delete the ovelapping ranges
mergedRanges.Add(new TimeRange { Start = Math.Min(range.Start, overlapping.Min(r => r.Start)), End = Math.Max(range.End, overlapping.Max(r => r.End)) });
foreach (var r in overlapping)
mergedRanges.Remove(r);
}
}
return mergedRanges;
}
Note: On second thought, the infinite loop problem might have been avoided by ordering the initial ranges (?). Not sure.