Listslists-top-n
Lesson·difficulty 2/5·~12 min
Lists: top N values
Lists
Lists hold multiple values in order:
python
fruit = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
fruit[0] # "apple" — indices start at 0
fruit[-1] # "cherry" — negative counts from the end
fruit.append("kiwi")
len(fruit) # 4
You can iterate over a list with for:
python
for item in fruit:
print(item)
Your task
Write a function top_n(values, n) that returns the n largest numbers
from values, sorted from largest to smallest.
If n is greater than len(values), return all of them sorted.
python
top_n([3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6], 3) # [9, 6, 5]
top_n([], 5) # []
top_n([1, 2, 3], 10) # [3, 2, 1]
Hint: sorted(values, reverse=True) returns a new sorted list.
Tests
- top 3 of unsorted
- empty input
- n larger than len
- n=0
- duplicates kept (hidden)
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