Python Program to Find the Second Largest Number in a List
mediumListsPython
Once a list is sorted, its largest numbers sit at the end — and negative indexes count from the end.
The question
Read a line of different integers separated by spaces and print the second largest number.
The code
program.py
nums = list(map(int, input().split()))
nums.sort()
print("Second largest =", nums[-2])Input
52 95 31 35 23 19 86
Output
Second largest = 86
How it works
- 1Read the numbers into a list.
- 2nums.sort() arranges them from smallest to largest.
- 3nums[-1] is the largest, so nums[-2] is the second largest.
Common mistakes
- Using nums[1], which is the second smallest, not the second largest.
- Writing nums = nums.sort() — sort() returns None, so the list is lost.
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