How do I get the highest key in a Python dictionary?

Question

d = {'apple': 9, 'oranges': 3, 'grapes': 22}

How do I return the largest key / value?

Edit: How do I create a list sorted by largest to lowest value?

+2

TIMEX May 19 '10 at 21:33

4 answers

FogleBird · Answer 1 · 2010-05-19T21:40:09+0000

>>> d = {'apple':9,'oranges':3,'grapes':22}
>>> v, k = max((v, k) for k, v in d.items())
>>> k
'grapes'
>>> v
22

Edit . To sort them:

>>> items = sorted(((v, k) for k, v in d.items()), reverse=True)
>>> items
[(22, 'grapes'), (9, 'apple'), (3, 'oranges')]

Jason webb · Answer 2 · 2010-05-19T21:39:49+0000

You want to use max () . To get the most key usage:

max(d.keys())

Or:

max(d)

To get the highest value:

max(d.values())

Daniel roseman · Answer 3 · 2010-05-19T21:35:06+0000

max(d.values())

Edited:

The above gives the maximum value. To get the key / value pair with the maximum value, you can do this:

sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x:x[1], reverse=True)[0]

John Machin · Answer 4 · 2010-05-19T21:56:42+0000

"" How to print the key too? "" "

maxval = max(d.itervalues())
maxkeys = [k for k, v in d.iteritems() if v == maxval]