How can I get the minimum and the maximum element of a list in python

Question

If a have a list like:

l = [1,2,3,4,5]

and I want to have at the end

min = 1   
max = 5

WITHOUT

Answer 1

If you only require one looping through the list, you could use reduce a (not so) creative way. The helper function could have been reduced as a lambda but I don't do it for sake of readability:

>>> def f(solutions, item):
...     return (item if item < solutions[0] else solutions[0],
...             item if item > solutions[1] else solutions[1])
... 

>>> L = [i for i in range(5)]
>>> functools.reduce(f, L, (L[0],L[0]))
(0, 4)