Iterations: Loop Idioms

Python
#1 
smallest = None
print("Before:", smallest)
for itervar in [3, 41, 12, 9, 74, 15]:
    if smallest is None or itervar < smallest:
        smallest = itervar
        break
    print("Loop:", itervar, smallest)
print("Smallest:", smallest)

In the course where does the error come and why?

#2

To what error are you referring? What are you expecting this code to do vs. what it does?

EDIT: You initialize smallest to None in the first line of code and then ask if smallest is None. It definitely is None because you assigned it the value None before the for loop, so you end up always assigning the first value in the list to smallest and then exit the loop.

#3

This was the question in the Python for everybody(Scientific computing with python):

Q)Below is code to find the smallest value from a list of values. One line has an error that will cause the code to not work as expected. Which line is it?:

smallest = None
print("Before:", smallest)
for itervar in [3, 41, 12, 9, 74, 15]:
    if smallest is None or itervar < smallest:
        smallest = itervar
        break
    print("Loop:", itervar, smallest)
print("Smallest:", smallest)

My doubt is which line would cause and error and what would it cause the code to not work?

#4

try it, paste your code here: http://pythontutor.com/visualize.html#mode=display
use the “visualize execution” button, and see what happens

the code will always say that the first item is the smallest, you can try with different lists