我有一个元组列表，每个元组都是一个(start-time, end-time)。我正在尝试合并所有重叠的时间范围，并返回不同时间范围的列表。例如

[(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 6)] --->  [(1,6)]
[(1, 3), (2, 4), (5, 8)] --->  [(1, 4), (5,8)]

这是我的实现方法。

# Algorithm
# initialranges: [(a,b), (c,d), (e,f), ...]
# First we sort each tuple then whole list.
# This will ensure that a<b, c<d, e<f ... and a < c < e ... 
# BUT the order of b, d, f ... is still random
# Now we have only 3 possibilities
#================================================
# b<c<d: a-------b           Ans: [(a,b),(c,d)]
#                  c---d
# c<=b<d: a-------b          Ans: [(a,d)]
#               c---d
# c<d<b: a-------b           Ans: [(a,b)]
#         c---d
#================================================
def mergeoverlapping(initialranges):
    i = sorted(set([tuple(sorted(x)) for x in initialranges]))

    # initialize final ranges to [(a,b)]
    f = [i[0]]
    for c, d in i[1:]:
        a, b = f[-1]
        if c<=b<d:
            f[-1] = a, d
        elif b<c<d:
            f.append((c,d))
        else:
            # else case included for clarity. Since 
            # we already sorted the tuples and the list
            # only remaining possibility is c<d<b
            # in which case we can silently pass
            pass
    return f

我想弄清楚是否

1. 是某些python模块中的内置函数可以更有效地做到这一点吗？要么
2. 有没有达到相同目标的更蟒蛇的方法？

感谢您的帮助。谢谢！