On Mon, 2010-09-06 at 17:37 -0700, ceycey wrote: > I have a list like ['1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', > '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.7689', '1.7689', > '3.4225', '7.7284', '10.24', '9.0601', '9.0601', '9.0601', '9.0601', > '9.0601']. What I want to do is to find minimum and maximum number in > this list. > > I used min function, > > s = ['1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', > '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.7689', > '1.7689', '3.4225', '7.7284', '10.24', '9.0601', '9.0601', '9.0601', > '9.0601', '9.0601'] > > print min(s) > print max(s) > > these gives me > > 1.181 > 9.0601 > > maximum value is wrong. It must be 10.24.
You are not comparing a list of floats but a list of strings. > I know why max function gives wrong number. Because max function > processed elements of list as strings. How can I convert the elements > of list to float so max function finds the correct answer. min/max in these cases are returning strings as well. So the fact remains that the max function is not giving you a number at all, but a string, and as such is correct. String comparison is not identical to numerical comparison. But to answer your question: >>> s = ['1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', ... '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.1881', '1.7689', ... '1.7689', '3.4225', '7.7284', '10.24', '9.0601', '9.0601', '9.0601', ... '9.0601', '9.0601'] >>> [type(x) for x in s] [<type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>, <type 'str'>] >>> type(max(s)) <type 'str'> >>> t = [float(x) for x in s] >>> [type(x) for x in t] [<type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>, <type 'float'>] >>> min(t) 1.1880999999999999 >>> max(t) 10.24 >>> type(max(s)) <type 'str'> >>> type(max(t)) <type 'float'> -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
