Python s most efficient way to choose longest string in list

Question

I have a list of variable length and am trying to find a way to test if the list item currently being evaluated is the longest string contained in the list  And I am using Python 2 6 1  For example   mylist     abc   abcdef   abcd    for each in mylist      if condition1          do something       elif                       else if each is the longest string contained in mylist          do something else     Surely there s a simple list comprehension that s short and elegant that I m overlooking

User · Answer

len each     max len x  for x in myList  or just each    max myList  key len

User · Answer

What should happen if there are more than 1 longest string  think  12   and  01     Try that to get the longest element  max length longest element   max   len x  x  for x in   a   b   aa       And then regular foreach  for st in mylist      if len st   max length

User · Answer

To get the smallest or largest item in a list  use the built-in min and max functions   lo   min L   hi   max L     As with sort  you can pass in a  quot key quot  argument that is used to map the list items before they are compared   lo   min L  key int   hi   max L  key int   http   effbot org zone python-list htm Looks like you could use the max function if you map it correctly for strings and use that as the comparison  I would recommend just finding the max once though of course  not for each element in the list

User · Answer

def LongestEntry lstName     totalEntries   len lstName    currentEntry   0   longestLength   0   while currentEntry  lt  totalEntries      thisEntry   len str lstName currentEntry        if int thisEntry   gt  int longestLength         longestLength   thisEntry       longestEntry   currentEntry     currentEntry    1   return longestLength

User · Answer

From the Python documentation itself  you can use max    gt  gt  gt  mylist     123   123456   1234    gt  gt  gt  print max mylist  key len  123456

User · Answer

def longestWord some list        count   0     You set the count to 0     for i in some list    Go through the whole list         if len i   gt  count   Checking for the longest word string              count   len i              word   i     return   the longest string is     word    or much easier   max some list   key   len

[python] Python's most efficient way to choose longest string in list?

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