So I'm trying to create a function that determines the maximum of a set of values, from scratch.
I'm not sure how to make the function change the new value of Max after a new Max has been found, I'm also not sure if my usage of args is correct.
def Maximum(*args):
Max = 0
for item in List:
if item > Max:
item = Max
return Max
List = [1,5,8,77,24,95]
maxList = Maximum(List)
print str(maxList)
Any help would be hugely appreciated.
You've got one line of code backwards. Your if statement is effectively saying that if item is greater than Max, set item to Max. You need to flip that to say if item is greater than Max, set Max to item.
if item > Max:
Max = item
return Max
Also, I'm not an expert in Python, but i think you need to change the List inside your function to match the parameter name, in this case args.
Max after the for loop*args = list of arguments -as positional arguments
You are passing a list as an argument here. So your code should look something like this -
def maximum(nums):
Max = 0
for item in nums:
if item > Max:
Max=item
return Max
List = [1,5,8,77,24,95]
print maximum(List)
This would give you the result : 95.
On the other hand you can use the max built in function to get the maximum number in the list.
print max(List)
Using reduce():
Python 2
def Maximum(data):
return reduce(lambda x, y: x if x > y else y, data)
In Python 3, add
from functools import reduce
Output:
print(Maximum([4, 8, 4, 19, -1]))
19
for item in Listshould befor item in args.argsis a list of negative numbers, it will return0. You could fix it by error handling for whenargsis empty, and then settingMax = args[0]