Find the 2nd highest element

Question

1. In a given array how to find the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th values?

2. Also if we use themax() function in python what is the order of complexity i.e, associated with this function max()?

.

def nth_largest(li,n):   
    li.remove(max(li))
    print max(ele)  //will give me the second largest
    #how to make a general algorithm to find the 2nd,3rd,4th highest value
    #n is the element to be found  below the highest value

Answer 1

I'd go for:

import heapq
res = heapq.nlargest(2, some_sequence)
print res[1] # to get 2nd largest

This is more efficient than sorting the entire list, then taking the first n many elements. See the heapq documentation for further info.