The min() function is used to retrieve the smallest item in an iterable object such as a list, tuple,dictionary, etc.

print(min(10, 2, 0, 4, 8, 6))

It is also used to check the smallest of two or more arguments.

print(min(1, 2))

print(min(7, 3, 1, 7))
min(iterable, *args, key = None, default=None)
iterable The iterable object from which the smallest item is to be retrieved .
args Arbitrary two or more objects to be compared .
key A function to be used as the comparison criteria.
default The default value to be returned in case the iterable is empty. It is only relevant if the arguments are in an iterable.

 

Note: the iterable argument and the args arguments are exclusive. If one is specified the other one is ommited.

The function returns the smallest value in the iterable or the smallest of the given positional argument.

Examples:

min(1, 2, 3, 0)
//0
min([6, 9, 5, 3])
//3
min(1.0, -5.2, -3.6, 3.4)
//-5.2
min(['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'f'])
//'a'
min(0, 1.6, 5, -3.5, -2, -3)
//-3.5

The default argument is used to specify a default value that will be returned if the iterable is empty. If no default argument is provided and the iterable is empty, a ValueError will be raised. Example:

​min([])
//ValueError: min() arg is an empty sequence
min([], default = "empty")
//Empty

The key argument is optional and specifies the criteria to be used for comparison. If it is not given then the elements will be compared using their default comparison operation. For example numerical values will be compared based on their mathematical values, strings will be compared alphabetically while sequence and collections such as  lists and sets  will be compared based on each of  their element's values.

All the items in the iterable needs to be comparable for the min() function to work, otherwise a TypeError will be raised. For example , while we can compare an integer to a float, it would be impossible to compare an integer to a string. Example:

min([1, 2,'3'])
//TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'int' and 'str'

The key argument can be used to overwrite the default comparison criteria. It is normally a function which gets called with all the elements in the iterable and the returned values are used in comparison instead of the elements themselves. For example we can check the smallest list by length in a two dimensional list by specifying  the builtin len function as the key .

Examples:

min([[1, 2], [5, 6, 7], [10], [15, 20, 30]], key = len)
//[10]
min(["Python", "Javascript", "Kotlin", "Ruby"], key = len)
//'Ruby'
min([1, -4, 1, 6, -9, 7], key = abs)
//1

The  lambda functions  are commonly used to create keys on the fly for this type of functions. For example, the example below will return the smallest object in the list based on the objects' second value.:

min(('Java', 4), ('Python', 1), ('C++', 7), ('Ruby', 3), ('Kotlin', 2), key = lambda x: x[1])
//('Python', 1)

You can check on min's counterpart, the max function.