def rangeextract(lst): lenlst = len(lst) i, ranges = 0, [] while i< lenlst: low = lst[i] while i = 2 else ('%i,%i' % (low, hi) if hi - low == 1 else '%i' % low) ) i += 1 return ','.join(ranges) lst = [ 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39] print(rangeextract(lst))