Python – Dual Element row with Maximum difference

Sometimes, while working with Python Matrix, we can have Matrix with its elements to be rows with just two elements and we may desire to get row with elements having maximum difference. This can have application in many domains. Lets discuss certain ways in which this task can be performed.

Method #1 : Using loop
This is brute force way in which this task can be performed. In this we iterate for each row and compute maximum and store row with larger difference each time while iteration.

# Python3 code to demonstrate
# Dual Element row with Maximum difference
# using loop

# Initializing list
test_list = [[5, 10], [1, 3], [4, 11], [1, 2]]

# printing original list
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))

# Dual Element row with Maximum difference
# using loop
max_till = -float('inf')
res = []
for sub in test_list:
    if abs(sub[0] - sub[1]) > max_till:
        max_till = abs(sub[0] - sub[1])
        res = sub

# printing result
print ("The maximum difference row is : " + str(res))

Output :

The original list is : [[5, 10], [1, 3], [4, 11], [1, 2]]
The maximum difference row is : [4, 11]

Method #2 : Using max() + lambda + list comprehension
The combination of above functionalities can be used to perform this task. In this, we perform the task of getting maximum using max() and lambda function and list comprehension is used to perform task of iteration.

# Python3 code to demonstrate
# Dual Element row with Maximum difference
# using max() + lambda + list comprehension

# Initializing list
test_list = [[5, 10], [1, 3], [4, 11], [1, 2]]

# printing original list
print("The original list is : " + str(test_list))

# Dual Element row with Maximum difference
# using max() + lambda + list comprehension
res = max(test_list, key = lambda ele: abs(ele[0] - ele[1]))

# printing result
print ("The maximum difference row is : " + str(res))

Output :

The original list is : [[5, 10], [1, 3], [4, 11], [1, 2]]
The maximum difference row is : [4, 11]