Find The Longest And Shortest Strings And Lengths In A Python List

You can the shortest and longest items in a Python list of strings by using `key=len` with the built-in `min()` and `max()` functions.

For example:

Code

state_names = ['Alabama', 'California', 'Iowa', 'Pennsylvania' ]

shortest_name = min(state_names, key=len)
longest_name = max(state_names, key=len)

print(shortest_name)
print(longest_name)

Outputs:

Code

Iowa
Pennsylvania

A useful addition is to call `len()` on the results to find the lengths.

For example:

Code

state_names = ['Alabama', 'California', 'Iowa', 'Pennsylvania' ]

shortest_string = len(min(state_names, key=len))
longest_string = len(max(state_names, key=len))

print(shortest_string)
print(longest_string)

Outputs:

Code

4
12

Short and sweet.

Happy coding.