Python Program to find largest element in an array

Given an array, find the largest element in it.

Input : arr[] = {10, 20, 4}
Output : 20

Input : arr[] = {20, 10, 20, 4, 100}
Output : 100

Approach 1:

Python3

# Python3 program to find maximum
# in arr[] of size n

# python function to find maximum
# in arr[] of size n


def largest(arr, n):

    # Initialize maximum element
    max = arr[0]

    # Traverse array elements from second
    # and compare every element with
    # current max
    for i in range(1, n):
        if arr[i] > max:
            max = arr[i]
    return max


# Driver Code
arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808]
n = len(arr)
Ans = largest(arr, n)
print("Largest in given array ", Ans)

# This code is contributed by Smitha Dinesh Semwal

Output

Largest in given array  9808

Time Complexity: O(N)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)

Approach 2 (Using built-in function max()):

Here we will use the inbuilt method max() to find the maximum of the array. Below is the implementation of the approach.

Python3

# Python3 program to find maximum
# in arr[] of size n
def largest(arr, n):
    ans = max(arr)
    return ans;

# Driver code
if __name__ == '__main__':
    arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808]
    n = len(arr)
    print ("Largest in given array ", largest(arr, n))

Output

Largest in given array  9808

Approach 3 (Using sort() function):

Here we use the sort() function to sort the array. The largest element will be the last element of the sorted array. Below is the implementation of the approach.

Python3

# Python3 program to find maximum
# in arr[] of size n

def largest(arr, n):

    # Sort the array
    arr.sort()

    # The last element of the
    # array is the largest element
    return arr[n-1]
    # or return arr[-1]

# Driver Code
arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808]
n = len(arr)
Ans = largest(arr, n)
print("Largest in given array ", Ans)

# This code is contributed by Induri Deepthi

Output

Largest in given array  9808

Please refer complete article on Program to find largest element in an array for more details!