Find the x smallest integers in a list of length n

Question

You have a list of n integers and you want the x smallest. For example,

x_smallest([1, 2, 5, 4, 3], 3) should return [1, 2, 3].

I\'ll v

Answer 1

def x_smallest(items, x):
    result = sorted(items[:x])
    for i in items[x:]:
        if i < result[-1]:
            result[-1] = i
            j = x - 1
            while j > 0 and result[j] < result[j-1]:
                result[j-1], result[j] = result[j], result[j-1]
                j -= 1
    return result

Worst case is O(x*n), but will typically be closer to O(n).