Python – Extract range of Consecutive Similar elements ranges from string list

Given a list, extract a range of consecutive similar elements.
Input : test_list = [2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8] Output : [(2, 0, 0), (3, 1, 3), (8, 4, 5)] Explanation : 2 occurs from 0th to 0th index, 3 from 1st to 3rd index.
Input : test_list = [3, 3, 3] Output : [(3, 0, 3)] Explanation : 3 from 0th to 3rd index.
Approach: Using loop
This is a brute way to tackle this problem. In this, we loop for each element and get a similar element range. These are traced and appended in the list accordingly with elements.
Steps:
- Initialize a list test_list with integer values.
- Print the original list.
- Initialize an empty list res to store the results.
- Initialize a variable idx to 0.
- While the value of idx is less than the length of the test_list:
 a. Set the variable strt_pos equal to the current value of idx.
 b. Set the variable val equal to the value at index idx in test_list.
 c. While the value of idx is less than the length of test_list and the value at index idx is equal to val, increment idx by 1.
 d. Set the variable end_pos equal to idx – 1.
 e. Append the tuple (val, strt_pos, end_pos) to the list res.
- Print the elements with their range in the format [ele, strt_pos, end_pos] using the res list.
Python3
| # Python3 code to demonstrate working of# Consecutive Similar elements ranges# Using loop# Initializing listtest_list =[2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 6, 7, 7]# Printing original listprint("The original list is : "+str(test_list))res =[]idx =0whileidx < (len(test_list)):    strt_pos =idx    val =test_list[idx]    # Getting last position    while(idx < len(test_list) andtest_list[idx] ==val):        idx +=1    end_pos =idx -1    # Appending in format [element, start, end position]    res.append((val, strt_pos, end_pos))# Printing resultprint("Elements with range : "+str(res)) | 
Output
The original list is : [2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 6, 7, 7] Elements with range : [(2, 0, 0), (3, 1, 3), (8, 4, 5), (6, 6, 6), (7, 7, 8)]
Time Complexity: O(n2)
Auxiliary Space: O(n)
Method 2: using Python’s built-in itertools.groupby() function
Approach:
- Import itertools module.
- Initialize the list.
- Use groupby() function to group the elements based on their value.
- Convert the groupby object to a list of tuples and store them in res.
- For each tuple in res, extract the key (i.e., the value of the similar elements), the start index, and the end index using the built-in functions.
- Append a tuple of (key, start index, end index) to the result list.
- Print the original list and the elements with their range.
Python3
| # Python3 code to demonstrate working of# Consecutive Similar elements ranges# Using Python's built-in itertools.groupby() methodimportitertools# Initializing listtest_list =[2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 6, 7, 7]# Printing original listprint("The original list is : "+str(test_list))# Grouping similar elements# using itertools.groupby() methodres =[]fork, g initertools.groupby(test_list):    group =list(g)    start_index =test_list.index(group[0])    end_index =start_index +len(group) -1    res.append((k, start_index, end_index))# Printing the resultprint("Elements with range : "+str(res)) | 
Output
The original list is : [2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 6, 7, 7] Elements with range : [(2, 0, 0), (3, 1, 3), (8, 4, 5), (6, 6, 6), (7, 7, 8)]
Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the length of the list.
Auxiliary Space: O(n), to store the result list.
Method 3: Using the numpy library
Step-by-step approach:
- Import the numpy library.
- Convert the given list to a numpy array using numpy.array() method.
- Calculate the difference between consecutive elements using the numpy.diff() method and concatenate a 0 at the beginning to capture the starting index of each group.
- Find the indices where the difference is non-zero using the numpy.nonzero() method.
- Calculate the start and end indices for each group by iterating through the indices obtained in step 4.
- Create a list of tuples containing the group value and its start and end indices.
- Return the resulting list.
Python3
| importnumpy as npdefconsecutive_similar_elements_ranges(test_list):    # Convert list to numpy array    arr =np.array(test_list)        # Calculate difference between consecutive elements    diff =np.concatenate(([0], np.diff(arr)))        # Find indices where difference is non-zero    idx =np.nonzero(diff)[0]        # Iterate through indices and calculate start and end indices for each group    res =[]    fori inrange(len(idx)):        start =idx[i]        end =idx[i+1]-1ifi+1< len(idx) elselen(test_list)-1        res.append((test_list[start], start, end))        # Check if the first element is missing from the result    iflen(res) ==0orres[0][0] !=test_list[0]:        res.insert(0, (test_list[0], 0, 0))        returnres# Example usagetest_list =[2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 6, 7, 7]print(consecutive_similar_elements_ranges(test_list)) | 
OUTPUT : [(2, 0, 0), (3, 1, 3), (8, 4, 5), (6, 6, 6), (7, 7, 8)]
Time complexity: O(n), where n is the length of the input list.
Space complexity: O(n), where n is the length of the input list.
 
				 
					


