CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-3.xmaxalphabet
RjDeVera
RjDeVera

Reputation: 51

How python choose the max letters from string

Please tell me why python choose this:

print(max("NEW new"))

OUTPUT: w

Had i understood correctly: lowercase in python on the first place, on the second place uppercase?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2342

Answers (3)

Personman
Personman

Reputation: 2323

This is just part of Python's definition for > on strings. It does lexicographic comparison with all lowercase letters coming after all uppercase letters. This is a result of the ordering of ASCII.

Since a string is an interable of characters, and max() goes through its iterable argument one by one and returns the one that compares > all the others, 'w' is the result.

Upvotes: 0

Chris Doyle
Chris Doyle

Reputation: 12027

in the ascii code lower case letters have a higher code (I.E come later in the table) then upper case letters. you can see this by printing the ascii code for each letter 

for letter in "NEW new":
    print(f'{letter} : {ord(letter)}')

OUTPUT

N : 78
E : 69
W : 87
  : 32
n : 110
e : 101
w : 119

as you can see lower case w has the highest (max) value.

Upvotes: 0

physicist
physicist

Reputation: 904

max will compare the ASCII value of each character in the string. You can see for yourself what they are by trying out ord('N') or ord(' ') or ord('w')

here is the result from python interpreter

>>> string = "NEW new"
>>> for s in string:
...     print(s , "--", ord(s))
... 
N -- 78
E -- 69
W -- 87
  -- 32
n -- 110
e -- 101
w -- 119
>>>

Upvotes: 3

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