Python | Values Frequency till Maximum K

One of the problem that is basically a subproblem for many complex problem, finding numbers smaller than certain number in list in python, is commonly encountered and this particular article discusses possible solutions to this particular problem.

Method 1 : Naive method
The most common way this problem can be solved is using loop and just counting the occurrences of elements that are smaller than the given number K.

# Python 3 code to demonstrate
# Values Frequency till Maximum K
# using naive method

# initializing list
test_list = [1, 7, 5, 6, 3, 8]

# initializing k
k = 4

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

# using naive method
# to get numbers < k
count = 0
for i in test_list :
    if i < k :
        count = count + 1

# printing the result
print ("The numbers smaller than 4 : " + str(count))

Output :

The list : [1, 7, 5, 6, 3, 8]
The numbers smaller than 4 : 2

Method 2 : Using sum()
The sum() can also help us achieving this task. We can return 1 when the number smaller than k is found and then compute the summation of is using sum().

# Python 3 code to demonstrate
# Values Frequency till Maximum K
# using sum()

# initializing list
test_list = [1, 7, 5, 6, 3, 8]

# initializing k
k = 4

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

# using sum()
# to get numbers < k
count = sum(i < k for i in test_list)

# printing the result
print ("The numbers smaller than 4 : " + str(count))

Output :

The list : [1, 7, 5, 6, 3, 8]
The numbers smaller than 4 : 2