Applying the max() function on a user entered integer list does not return the maximum?

Question

I want to find the maximum and minimum in a user provided list of numbers.

value = input("Please enter an integer separated by commas. :")

i = value.split(',')

value1 = max(i)
value2 = min(i)

print("max =", value1)

print("min =", value2)

Executing the code and entering 1,2,4,36,5 results in

Please enter an integer separated by commas. :1,2,4,36,5
max = 5
min = 1

Why does the max() function return 5 instead of 36 ?

Answer 1

You should cast all the i elements to int

value = input("Please enter an integer separated by commas. :") #input 1,2,4,36,5

i=[int(el) for el in value.split(',')]
value1 = max(i)
value2 = min(i)
print("max =", value1)
print("min =", value2)

OR

i = [int(el) for el in input("Please enter an integer separated by commas. :").split(',')] #input 1,2,4,36,5

value1 = max(i)
value2 = min(i)
print("max =", value1)
print("min =", value2)

Output

max = 36
min = 1

The original code made that elements in i as strings ['1', '2', '4', '36', '5'] so they just need to be changed to ints and that made the min and max functions to work properly.

Answer 2

They are in string format that's why. Just map them to integer.

value = input("Please enter an integer separated by commas. :")

i=list(map(int, value.split(','))) #<---- Here
print(i)

value1 = max(i)
value2 = min(i)

print("max =", value1)

print("min =", value2)

Answer 3

Convert it into integer to get proper results

value = input("Please enter an integer separated by commas. :")

i=value.split(',')
i = [int(x) for x in i]
value1 = max(i)
value2 = min(i)

print("max =", value1)

print("min =", value2)

OR

value = input("Please enter an integer separated by commas. :")

i=[int(x) for x in value.split(',')]

value1 = max(i)
value2 = min(i)

print("max =", value1)

print("min =", value2)