# Program to find length of longest interval from a list of intervals in Python

PythonServer Side ProgrammingProgramming

Suppose we have a list of intervals where each interval is in form [start, end]. We have to find the longest interval that we can make by merging any number of overlapping intervals.

So, if the input is like [[1, 6],[4, 9],[5, 6],[11, 14],[16, 20]], then the output will be 9, as after merging, we have the interval [1, 9] of a length 9.

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• sort the list intervals
• union := first interval from the intervals list
• best := union[end] - union[start] + 1
• for each start time s and end time e in intervals except the first one, do
• if s <= union[end], then
• union[end] := maximum of union[end] and e
• otherwise,
• union := a new interval [s, e]
• best := maximum of best and union[end] - union[start] + 1
• return best

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

## Example

Live Demo

class Solution:
def solve(self, intervals):
intervals.sort()
union = intervals[0]
best = union[1] - union[0] + 1
for s, e in intervals[1:]:
if s <= union[1]:
union[1] = max(union[1], e)
else:
union = [s, e]
best = max(best, union[1] - union[0] + 1)
return best
ob = Solution()
intervals = [[1, 6],[4, 9],[5, 6],[11, 14],[16, 20]]
print(ob.solve(intervals))

## Input

[[1, 6],[4, 9],[5, 6],[11, 14],[16, 20]]

## Output

9
Published on 19-Nov-2020 07:15:34