For loop that finds min, max, sum and average from a list

Question

I've this assignment in Python 3 where I get a list of numbers and using at least a for loop I need to find the min, max, sum, and average of the numbers. But the tricky part is that I can only use the len() function, no while loops, def/return, max/min, just len() and for loops, can do if/else statements tho. So please let's say this is the list.

numbers=[1,35,54,99,67,2,9] biggest= numbers[0] smallest=numbers[0] for bigs in range(1,len(numbers)): if numbers[bigs] > biggest: biggest = numbers [bigs] print("The max number is", biggest) for smalls in range(1,len(numbers)): if numbers[smalls] < smallest: smallest = numbers [smalls] print("The min number is", smallest)

That's what I have for max and min and it does work, a bit messy but it works, but I've no clue how to do sum and average. How could I do all that using only for loops and len()? Thanks!

What have you tried so far? Hint: use comparison operators <, >, +, / ... — jpp
– jpp, Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 0:29
You are already accessing every element of your list when you say "for bigs in range..." and "number[bigs] = ...." All you need to do is add this element to a "sum" variable that you initialize to 0 before the for loop. Then you divide that by len() to get the average. — hikerjobs
– hikerjobs, Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 0:38
You don't need to use sum. When I said 'sum' it is just a variable name. Call it 'Hello' if you want :-) hello = 0 and then keep adding the rest to this: hello = hello + numbers[big] ... At the end of this, you will have the sum in the hello variable. — hikerjobs
– hikerjobs, Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 0:48

Thomas D. Frøysa · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-09 01:08:20Z

3

If you are allowed to store values you could do something like:

smallest = numbers[0] biggest = numbers[0] total = 0 for num in numbers: if num < smallest: smallest = num elif num > biggest: biggest = num total += num average = total / len(numbers)

edited Mar 9, 2018 at 1:08

answered Mar 9, 2018 at 0:34

Thomas D. Frøysa

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3 Comments

Alan Hoover Over a year ago

Don't shadow builtins (sum)

Jonathan Over a year ago

Do you mind editing it where I can just copy it and hit run and it works?

Thomas D. Frøysa Over a year ago

Updated to "smallest", "biggest", "total" and "average" to not shadow builtins.

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