How to return maximum value and it's associated keys from nested dictionaries

user_15314966 0
Viewed 58

How can I find the maximum value from within the nested dictionaries and return this value with the key from the nested dictionary and the key from the 'main' dictionary (sorry, dont know the correct terminology for the outer dictionary)? For example, if I have the following:

my_dict = {
        0: {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30},
        10: {10: 100, 20: 200, 30: 300},
        20: {100: 1000, 200: 2000, 300: 3000}
        }

The maximum value is 3000 which has the key 300 and this belongs to the 'main' key 20. How can I return this value and its two associated keys?

python-3.x dictionary python
2 Answers

Here's an option with comprehension and max:

my_dict = {
        0: {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30},
        10: {10: 100, 20: 200, 30: 300},
        20: {100: 1000, 200: 2000, 300: 3000}
        }
        
m = max({max(d.values()) for d in my_dict.values()})

For getting the keys as well:

my_dict = {
        0: {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30},
        10: {10: 100, 20: 200, 30: 300},
        20: {100: 1000, 200: 2000, 300: 3000}
        }
        
def get_max_key_value(d):
    max_key = max(d, key=d.get)
    return max_key, d[max_key]

max_values = {k: get_max_key_value(inner_dict) for k, inner_dict in my_dict.items()}
print(get_max_key_value(max_values))

Which yields:

(20, (300, 3000))
user_140045410

You can do that in 2 steps, first you find the nested dictionary which has the maximum number in it's values :

my_dict = {
    0: {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30},
    10: {10: 100, 20: 200, 30: 300},
    20: {100: 1000, 200: 2000, 300: 3000},
}

# step 1
k_outer, v_outer = max(my_dict.items(), key=lambda x: max(x[1]))

# step 2
k_inner, v_inner = max(v_outer.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])

print(k_outer, k_inner, v_inner)

output:

20 300 3000

I believe the above solution will work quite efficiently but you can find the items you're interested in, in just one iteration as well:

my_dict = {
    0: {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30},
    10: {10: 100, 20: 200, 30: 300},
    20: {100: 1000, 200: 2000, 300: 3000},
}

max_value = float("-inf")
outer_key = None
inner_key = None

for k_outer, v_outer in my_dict.items():
    for k_inner, v_inner in v_outer.items():
        if v_inner > max_value:
            max_value = v_inner
            outer_key = k_outer
            inner_key = k_inner

print(outer_key, inner_key, max_value)

This way whenever you find a value (v_inner) that is bigger that your max_value, you store those two keys (outer_key, inner_key). After the iteration completes, you have your data.

user_139445240
Related