Python find min & max of two lists

Question

I have two lists such as:

l_one = [2,5,7,9,3]
l_two = [4,6,9,11,4]

...and I need to find the min and max value from both lists combined. That is, I want to generate a single min and a single max value.

My question is - what is the most pythonic way to achieve this?

Any help much appreciated.

Answer 1

Arguably the most readable way is

max(l_one + l_two)

or

min(l_one + l_two)

It will copy the lists, though, since l_one + l_two creates a new list. To avoid copying, you could do

max(max(l_one), max(l_two))
min(min(l_one), min(l_two))

Answer 2

Another way that avoids copying the lists

>>> l_one = [2,5,7,9,3]
>>> l_two = [4,6,9,11,4]
>>> 
>>> from itertools import chain
>>> max(chain(l_one, l_two))
11
>>> min(chain(l_one, l_two))
2