I am trying to find the Max and Min in a set of numbers from a CSV file. My code keeps returning the wrong number for Max function for some rows. Here is my code:
with open('Cortex_vs_Liver_trial.csv', newline='') as infile: reader = csv.reader(infile) for row in reader: print(row) print('The maximun is:', max(row)) print('The minimum is:', min(row))
An example of my output:
['86.21', '100.00', '96.30'] The maximun is: 96.30 The minimum is: 100.00
I am not sure what I have done wrong. Some advice would be appreciated.
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Answer
Your list elements are strings. You need to convert them to float
to avoid comparing lexicographically (alphabetically, one character at a time, where '100' < '2'
because 1 < 2
)
numrow = [float(x) for x in row] print('The maximun is:', max(numrow)) print('The minimum is:', min(numrow))
Unless you actually want strings, in which case don’t make the new list, and just pass key=float
to your max()
function:
max(numrow, key=float)