Recursive algorithm for coalescing / collapsing list of dates into ranges

Question

Given a list of dates

12/07/2010
13/07/2010
14/07/2010
15/07/2010
12/08/2010
13/08/2010
14/08/2010
15/08/2010
19/08/2010
20/08/2010
21/08/2010

I'm looking for pointers towards a recursive pseudocode algorithm (which I can translate into a FileMaker custom function) for producing a list of ranges, i.e.

12/07/2010 to 15/07/2010, 12/08/2010 to 15/08/2010, 19/08/2010 to 20/08/2010

The list is presorted and de-duplicated. I've tried starting from both the first value and working forwards, and the last value and working backwards but I just can't seem to get it to work. Having one of those frustrating days... It would be nice if the signature was something like

CollapseDateList( dateList, separator, ellipsis )

:-)

Answer 1

The main routine would look something like this:

List<String> list  = new ArrayList<String>();

String firstDate   = dateList[0];
String lastDate    = dateList[0];
String currentDate = dateList[0];

for (int i = 1; i < dateList.length(); i++) {
    if (dateDiff(dateList[i], currentDate) == 1) {
        lastDate   = dateList[i];
    } else {
        list.add(firstDate + separator + lastDate);
        firstDate = dateList[i];
        lastDate  = dateList[i];
    }
    currentDate = dateList[i];
}
list.add(firstDate + separator + lastDate);

I'm assuming you have some function that tells you if two dates are consecutive or not.