Find the greatest number in a list of numbers

Question

Is there any easy way or function to determine the greatest number in a python list? I could just code it, as I only have three numbers, however it would make the code a lot

Answer 1

This approach is without using max() function

a = [1,2,3,4,6,7,99,88,999]
max_num = 0
for i in a:
    if i > max_num:
        max_num = i
print(max_num)

Also if you want to find the index of the resulting max,

print(a.index(max_num))

Direct approach by using function max()

max() function returns the item with the highest value, or the item with the highest value in an iterable

Example: when you have to find max on integers/numbers

a = (1, 5, 3, 9)
print(max(a))
>> 9

Example: when you have string

x = max("Mike", "John", "Vicky")
print(x)
>> Vicky

It basically returns the name with the highest value, ordered alphabetically.

Answer 2

You can actually sort it:

sorted(l,reverse=True)

---

l = [1, 2, 3]
sort=sorted(l,reverse=True)
print(sort)

You get:

[3,2,1]

But still if want to get the max do:

print(sort[0])

You get:

3

if second max:

print(sort[1])

and so on...

Answer 3

You can use the inbuilt function max() with multiple arguments:

print max(1, 2, 3)

or a list:

list = [1, 2, 3]
print max(list)

or in fact anything iterable.

Answer 4

max is a builtin function in python, which is used to get max value from a sequence, i.e (list, tuple, set, etc..)

print(max([9, 7, 12, 5]))

# prints 12 

Answer 5

What about max()

highest = max(1, 2, 3)  # or max([1, 2, 3]) for lists

Answer 6

Use max()

>>> l = [1, 2, 5]
>>> max(l)
5
>>>