Let’s say you have a list of integer values that represent the days of a month like this:

6, 2, 4, 1, 9, 7, 3, 10, 15, 19, 11, 18, 13, 22, 24, 20, 27, 31, 25, 28

Clearly we have missing numbers/days in the list above. They are:

5 8 12 14 16 17 21 23 26 29 30

It’s really easy to get a list of missing numbers using LINQ with C# and the Except operator. LINQ is the greatest addition to the C# language. I can imagine how life would be difficult if we hadn’t LINQ!

This is how I implemented a missing numbers finder using a C# extension method:

public static class MyExtensions
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Finds the missing numbers in a list.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="list">List of numbers</param>
    /// <returns>Missing numbers</returns>
    public static IEnumerable<int> FindMissing(this List<int> list)
    {
        // Sorting the list
        list.Sort();

        // First number of the list
        var firstNumber = list.First();

        // Last number of the list
        var lastNumber = list.Last();

        // Range that contains all numbers in the interval
        // [ firstNumber, lastNumber ]
        var range = Enumerable.Range(firstNumber, lastNumber - firstNumber);

        // Getting the set difference
        var missingNumbers = range.Except(list);

        return missingNumbers;
    }
}

Now you can call the extension method in the following way:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // List of numbers
        List<int> daysOfMonth =
            new List<int>() { 6, 2, 4, 1, 9, 7, 3, 10, 15, 19, 11, 18, 13, 22, 24, 20, 27, 31, 25, 28 };

        Console.Write("\nList of days: ");

        foreach(var num in daysOfMonth)
        {
            Console.Write("{0} ", num);
        }

        Console.Write("\n\nMissing days are: ");

        // Calling the Extension Method in the List of type int 
        foreach(var number in daysOfMonth.FindMissing())
        {
            Console.Write("{0} ", number);
        }
    }
}

This is the output:

 

In this simple program I’m using 3 concepts of the C# language that are really interesting: implicitly typed local variables, extension methods and collection initializers.

Hope this simple extension method to find the missing elements of a sequence helps the developers out there.

Visual Studio 2008 C# Console Application
You can get the Microsoft Visual Studio Project at:

http://leniel.googlepages.com/MissingNumbersFinder.zip

To try out the code you can use the free Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition that you can get at: http://www.microsoft.com/express/vcsharp/