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From: Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:49:40 -0400
Subject: Re: Finding the Min for positive and negative in python 3.3 list
To: Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:41143

> min(a)

This does not return a negative minimum on input [1] (because there is none).

> and
>
> min([e for e in a if e >=0]

This does not return a positive minimum on input [0] (because there is none).

I would have said:

    pos_min = min(e for e in a if e > 0)
    neg_min = min(e for e in a if e < 0)

And then deal with the ValueError when there is no such minimum, as appropriate.

-- Devin