How to get max() to return variable names instead of values in Python?

user_10197987 0
Viewed 16802

So I would like to get the maximum value from 3 variables, x,y,z.

x = 1
y = 2
z = 3
max(x, y, z)  # returns 3 but I want "z"

However this returns the value of z i.e 3. How do I get the name of the variable e.g. "z" instead?

Thanks

python
5 Answers

Make a dictionary and then use max. Also works with min. It will return you the variable name in the form of string.

>>> x = 1
>>> y = 2
>>> z = 3
>>> var = {x:"x",y:"y",z:"z"}
>>> max(var)
3
>>> var.get(max(var))
'z'
>>> var.get(min(var))
'x'
>>>
user_83216640

You could put them into a dictionary and use max with a key:

dict1 = {'x':1, 'y':2, 'z':3}
max(dict1, key=dict1.get)

But think through the ramifications of this. What if you have the same val multiple times, and other edge cases.

user_54647470

Use a dictionary and get the maximum of its items, using a key function.

d = {'x':1, 'y':2, 'z':3}
max(d.items(), key=lambda i: i[1])
user_1043490

This is not at all recommended but you can use the globals() dictionary which keeps track of all variables that are either built-ins or have been defined by the user:

x = 1
y = 2
z = 3

variables = {k: v for k, v in globals().items() if isinstance(v, int)}
max_value = max(variables.values())
res = next(k for k, v in variables.items() if v == max_value)

which results in:

print(res)  # z
user_61623070

Create a List of the numbers then type max() around the list.

user_40718680
Related