On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:17 pm CM wrote: > I have three items in a dict, like this: > > the_dict = {'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3} > > but the vals could be anything. I want to configure something else > based on the "winner" of such a dict, with these rules: > > 1. In this dict, if there is a UNIQUE max value, that's the winner. > 2. If there are any TIES for max value, b is the winner by default. > > The problem for me, as I see it, is I don't know any elegant ways to > do this in Python. The max(dict) function doesn't distinguish between > unique and non-unique maxes. I could go through and test the various > possibilities (to see if the max value had any matches in the other > values), but, knowing Python, there is probably something close to > "one way to do it". Any suggestions?
# Untested. def get_winner(adict): values = sorted(adict.values(), reverse=True) if values[0] == values[1]: return adict['b'] else: return values[0] Assumes that adict has at least two items. May be slow if it has millions of items. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list