Question

I have a list of float values (positive and negative ones) stored in a variable row of type <type 'numpy.ndarray'>.

max_value = max(row)

gives me the maximal value of row. Is there an elegant way to select the top 3 (5, 10,…) values?

I came up with

1. selecting the maximum value from row
2. deleting the maximal value in row
3. selecting the maximum value from row
4. deleting the maximal value in row
5. and so on

But that’s certainly an ugly style and not pythonic at all. What do the pythonistas say to that? 🙂

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Edit

I need not only the maximal three values, bit there position (index in row), too. Sorry, I forgot to mention that…

Answer 1

I would use np.argsort

a = np.arange(10)
a[np.argsort(a)[-3:]]

EDIT
To also get the position, just use:

ii = np.argsort(a)[-3:] # positions
vals = a[ii]            # values