Finding the shortest string in a string of words in python

Question

I want to write a function that would return the length of the shortest string in a string of words. Sample: \"I eat apples\" would return 1 since \"I\" is the shorted string. T

Answer 1

I would suggest @pramod's answer if you want a quick and easy solution, but I will use your function and show you what happened.

def find_shortest(string):
    smallest_length = 99
    for word in string.split():
        current_length = 0
        for letter in word:
            current_length += 1
        if current_length < smallest_length:
            smallest_length = min_length
    return smallest_length

Changes

• I renamed most of the variables to make their purpose clearer
  • Notably the variable min was renamed. Since min is already defined as a function, this may cause issues.
• Changed for word in string to for word in string.split(). By default split() separates the string into a list based on whitespace. Previously you were simply iterating through every character, which is problematic.

Note: smallest_length being set to 99 assumes that the length of the smallest word is 99 characters or less. Set it higher for larger words.