[Python-Dev] Behaviour of max() and min() with equal keys

[Matthew Woodcraft]

Mark Dickinson wrote:
> Matthew Woodcraft wrote:
>> In CPython, the builtin max() and min() have the property that if there
>> are items with equal keys, the first item is returned. From a quick look
>> at their source, I think this is true for Jython and IronPython too.

> It's actually not clear to me that this behaviour is ideal;  it might
> make more sense to have max() return the first item among equal
> largest elements, and min() return the last item.

I don't care a great deal what the behaviour is; I would like it to be
consistent across Python versions, and I think the pragmatic way to
achieve that is to document the current behaviour.


> Can you give examples of code that relies on max and min returning the
> first among equals?

An existing regression test whose output depends on which choice is
made.


(I was writing some code today which had to duplicate the behaviour of a
non-Python program which uses first-among-equals, which is what brought
this question up. In that case I wouldn't think it unreasonable to have
to hand-code the loop rather than using max(), but if in practice Python
is always going to be first-among-equals, it seems to me we might as
well be 'allowed' to take advantage of it.)

-M-