Question

def big(dict, n):
    line = []

    for k in dict:
       if k > n:
            line.append(k)
            return line

I have to find all the elements in dict larger than n.

However, my code only returns the largest number in dict larger than n.

What do I need to do in order to make it correct?

Answer 1

The return line is tabbed too far over, so it returns when the first key larger than n is found (Note: a dictionary isn’t ordered by the way you write it), rather than going over all keys before returning. Try:

def big(dic, n):
    line = []
    for k in dic:
        if k > n:
            line.append(k)
    return line

In fact, you might prefer it to use list comprehension (and the function becomes just one line).

def big(dic, n):
    return [k for k in dic if k>n]

.

Dictionaries compomise of key value pairs, {key: value} and when we iterate over a dictionary we are iterating over it’s keys. This explains the use of the variable k to iterate over the keys. That is,

[k for k in dic] = [key1, key2, ...]

Hence, if you want to find that with the largest value in the dictionary, you can use:

    return [dic[k] for k in dic if dic[k]>n]

Note: I’ve changed the variable name to dic since (as @AndrewJaffe mentions) dict is a built-in object, and renaming it here may cause unexpected things to occur, and is generally considered bad practise. For example, if you wanted to check type(dic)==dict.