Find the smallest element in a list

Question

I would like to find the smallest value of list a . I know that there is a function like min() to find the value but I would like do it work with a for -loop. I get the error Index out of range with the if -Statement, but I don't know why.

a = [18,15,22,25,11,29,31]
n = len(a)

tmp = a[0]
for i in a:
   if(a[i] < tmp):
      tmp = a[i]
      print(tmp)

Answer 1

When you iterate over a list in Python ( for e in l: ), you do not iterate over the indices but over the elements directly. So you should write:

for e in a:
    if(e < tmp):
        tmp = e
        print(tmp)

Answer 2

As already said, you mixed iteration over elements and looping over indexes. The solution for iteration over elements was already presented, so for completeness I would like to write the other solution:

a = [18,15,22,25,11,29,31]
n = len(a)

tmp = a[0]
for i in range(n):
    if(a[i] < tmp):
        tmp = a[i]
        print(tmp)

Edit: changed xrange to range as per comment bellow.

Answer 3

a = [18,15,22,25,11,29,31]
print(min(a))