Python - Alternate Minimum element in list

Some of the list operations are quite general and having shorthands without needing to formulate a multiline code is always required. Wanting to construct the list consisting of all the alternate elements of the original list is a problem that one developer faces in day-day applications and sometimes require to find minimum of these alternate elements. Lets discuss certain ways in which this can be performed.

Method #1 : Using list comprehension + min()
Shorthand to the naive method, list comprehension provides a faster way to perform this particular task. In this method, all the indices which are not multiple of 2, hence odd are inserted in the new list. Then the minimum is extrated using min().

# Python code to demonstrate  
# Alternate elements Minimimum 
# using list comprehension + min() 
  
# initializing list  
test_list = [1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 3, 5] 
  
# printing original list  
print ("The original list : " + str(test_list)) 
  
# using list comprehension + min() 
# Alternate elements Minimimum 
res = min([test_list[i] for i in range(len(test_list)) if i % 2 != 0]) 
  
# printing result  
print ("The alternate element list minimum is : " + str(res)) 

Output :

The original list : [1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 3, 5]
The alternate element list minimum is : 3

Method #2 : Using enumerate() + min()
This is just a variation to the list comprehension method but does the similar internal working as list comprehension but uses different variables to keep track of index along with its value. Then the minimum is extrated using min().

# Python code to demonstrate  
# Alternate elements Minimimum 
# using enumerate() + min() 
  
# initializing list  
test_list = [1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 3, 5] 
  
# printing original list  
print ("The original list : " + str(test_list)) 
  
# using enumerate() + min() 
# Alternate elements Minimimum 
res = min([i for j, i in enumerate(test_list) if j % 2 != 0]) 
  
# printing result  
print ("The alternate element list minimum is : " + str(res)) 

Output :

The original list : [1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 3, 5]
The alternate element list minimum is : 3

My Personal Notes

Python – Alternate Minimum element in list

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