On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 8:17 PM, CM <cmpyt...@gmail.com> 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.
Er, for (2), you mean b's /value/ is the winner, right?
> 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?
# presumes at least 2 items
from heapq import nlargest
winner, runner_up = nlargest(2, the_dict.itervalues())
if winner == runner_up:
winner = the_dict['b']
Cheers,
Chris
--
http://rebertia.com
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
