PYTHON: Simplest way to open a csv file and find the maximum number in a column and the name assosciated with it?

Question

I have looked at this reference so please do not refer me to it.

Find max number in .CSV file in Python I struggled to modify this code to my own document for over

Answer 1

The max function should handle that for you. In my below code I've already "read" the CSV (with fake data, but you seem to have a grasp on that portion)

data = [
    ["California", 123456],
    ["Idaho", 123],
    ["Utah", 2]
]

print max(data, key=lambda _: _[1])

This yields ['California', 123456]

The key=lambda _: _[1] tells the function to use the second value of each record, the population in this case, to check the maximum.

Putting it all together should be something like:

def largestState():
    INPUT = "statepopulations.csv"
    COLUMN = 5
    with open(INPUT, "rU") as csvFile:
        data = csv.reader(csvFile)
        next(data, None)
    return max(data, key=lambda _: _[COLUMN])