Formula to Condense a Series of Numbers with hyphens

[Paul_Warren]

I am looking to take a long string of comma separated numbers (it is a string from a look up). Here is an example of numbers to summarize:

1.17-01, 1.17-02, 1.17-03, 1.17-04, 1.17-05, 1.17-06, 1.17-07, 1.17-08, 1.17-09, 1.17-10, 1.17-11, 1.17-12, 1.17-13, 1.17-14, 1.17-17, 1.17-18, 1.33-01, 1.33-02, 1.33-03, 1.33-04, 1.33-05, 1.33-07, 1.33-08, 1.33-09, 1.33-10, 1.33-11, 1.33-12, 1.33-13, 1.33-14, 1.33-15, 1.33-16, 1.33-17

If you look closely, there are missing numbers. I am hoping to find a formula that will output:
1.17-01 --> 1.17-14, 1.17-17, 1.17-18, 1.33-01, --> 1.33-05, 1.33-07, --> 1.33-17

I am flexible on the “–>”, but as you can see a simple dash won’t work, because dashes exist in the numbers. Has anyone seen something like this before? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[Paul_Warren]

Paul_Warren:

Separate the groups by commas instead of new lines. The primary reason for this script is to condense the information into a smaller space and improve readability. I mostly want it to use in a nice Page designer and the new lines expand the data to take even more room than before with long discontinuous lists.

Actually, I found a way to do this with a simple formula:
LEFT(
SUBSTITUTE(
{Input Components Condensed},
‘\n’,
', ’
),
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(
{Input Components Condensed},
‘\n’,
', ’
)
)-2
)

Thanks!

[Bill_French]

Paul_Warren:

I sincerely thank you for your volunteer time on this! I mean no disrespect in my recommendations.

You’re welcome and non taken. This is the world of fluid requirements because often we don’t know what’s possible.

But it also underscores the need for detailed requirements; we all agree they are beneficial, but the time it takes to think through all of the nuances is typically where developers and domain experts lunge forward without a clear pathway and outcome in mind.