CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonstring
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Reputation: 213

Checking strings and determine which is alphabetically smaller

How do I perform the comparison between two strings to determine which is alphabetically smaller?

Example, if I have strings 'aberr' and 'aftward' how do I determine which is alphabetically smaller? Another example would be 'beast' and 'best'.

Do I have to make the strings into it's ascii representation such as:

ascii a + ascii b + ascii e...

Upvotes: 0

Views: 7697

Answers (1)

TwistedSim
TwistedSim

Reputation: 2030

You can do string comparison in Python:

>>> min('aberr', 'aftward') 
'aberr'

and

>>> min('beast', 'best')
'beast'

EDIT

As Grady Player points out, A come after z. You'll need to lower the string like this:

>>> min('aaaa', 'Bbbb')
'Bbbb'
>>> min('aaaa'.lower(), 'Bbbb'.lower())
'aaaa'

If you want to keep the string like it was, you'll need to use the key attribute of min:

>>> min('Aaaa', 'bbbb', key=lambda s: s.lower())
'Aaaa'

You can also sort them:

>>> sorted(['Aaaa', 'bbbb', 'cbaaa', 'bcaaa'], key=lambda s: s.lower())
['Aaaa', 'bbbb', 'bcaaa', 'cbaaa']

Upvotes: 3

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