How do you find the minimum value in a list Python?

Python List min() Method

Python program to find smallest number in a list

Given a list of numbers, the task is to write a Python program to find the smallest number in given list.
Examples:

Table of Contents Show

Python List min() Method
Python program to find smallest number in a list
Python min()
How to find max and min from a list
Where to Go From Here?

Input : list1 = [10, 20, 4] Output : 4 Input : list2 = [20, 10, 20, 1, 100] Output : 1

Method 1 : Sort the list in ascending order and print the first element in the list.

Python3

# Python program to find smallest 
# number in a list
# list of numbers

list1 = [10, 20, 4, 45, 99]
# sorting the list
list1.sort()
# printing the first element

print("Smallest element is:", *list1[:1])

Output:

smallest element is: 4

Method 2 : Using min() method

Python3

# Python program to find smallest 
# number in a list
# list of numbers

list1 = [10, 20, 1, 45, 99]
# printing the maximum element

print("Smallest element is:", min(list1))

Output:

Smallest element is: 1

Method 3 : Find min list element on inputs provided by user.

Python3

# Python program to find smallest 
# number in a list
# creating empty list

list1 = []
# asking number of elements to put in list

num = int(input("Enter number of elements in list: "))
# iterating till num to append elements in list

for i in range(1, num + 1):

ele= int(input("Enter elements: "))

list1.append(ele)

# print maximum element

print("Smallest element is:", min(list1))

Output:

Enter number of elements in list: 4 Enter elements: 12 Enter elements: 19 Enter elements: 11 Enter elements: 99 Smallest element is: 11

Method 4: Find the smallest element in list.

Python3

# Python program to find smallest 
# number in a list

l=[ int(l) for l in input("List:").split(",")]

print("The list is ",l)
# Assign first element as a minimum.

min1 = l[0]

for i in range(len(l)):

# If the other element is min than first element

if l[i] < min1:

min1 = l[i] #It will change

print("The smallest element in the list is ",min1)

Input:

List: 23,-1,45,22.6,78,100,-5

Output:

The list is ['23', '-1', '45', '22.6', '78', '100','-5'] The smallest element in the list is -5

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Python min()

In this tutorial, we will learn about the Python min() function with the help of examples.

The min() function returns the smallest item in an iterable. It can also be used to find the smallest item between two or more parameters.

Example

numbers = [9, 34, 11, -4, 27]

# find the smallest number min_number = min(numbers)

print(min_number) # Output: -4

The min() function has two forms:

# to find the smallest item in an iterable min(iterable, *iterables, key, default) # to find the smallest item between two or more objects min(arg1, arg2, *args, key)

How to find max and min from a list

Finding the maximum and minimum values in a list is pretty easy because of the built-in max and min functions provided by Python. However, you may be wondering what the logic behind these functions is. Let me explain it with a couple of code snippets.

# Pass a list to this function to check for maximum number def max_check(x): max_val = x[0] for check in x: if check > max_val: max_val = check return max_val

Function to find maximum number of a list.

# Pass a list to this function to check for minimum number def min_check(x): min_val = x[0] for check in x: if check < min_val: min_val = check return min_val

Function to find minimum number of a list.

To validate our above defined functions, let’s pass a list to them.

# Pass a list to this function to check for maximum number def max_check(x): max_val = x[0] for check in x: if check > max_val: max_val = check return max_val # Pass a list to this function to check for minimum number def min_check(x): min_val = x[0] for check in x: if check < min_val: min_val = check return min_val #List my_list = [2, 6, 8, 14, 3, 77, 63] #Printing Values print("Maximum of the list", max_check(my_list)) print("Minimum of the list", min_check(my_list))

Run

Validate the max and min functions.

Note: The functions will generate an error for empty lists.

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory. Let’s get some practice!

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