Finding lowest value in dictionary of objects, how?

[Boris Borcic]

davenet wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm new to Python and working on a school assignment.
> 
> I have setup a dictionary where the keys point to an object. Each
> object has two member variables. I need to find the smallest value
> contained in this group of objects.
> 
> The objects are defined as follows:
> 
> class Block:
>    def __init__(self,addr):
>       self.addr = addr
>       self.age = 0
> 
> My dictionary is defined as:
>    blocks = {}
> 
> I have added 1000 (will hold more after I get this working) objects. I
> need to find the lowest age in the dictionary. If there is more than
> one age that is lowest (like if several of them are '1', etc), then I
> can just pick randomly any that equal the lowest value.

 >>> help(min)
Help on built-in function min in module __builtin__:

min(...)
     min(iterable[, key=func]) -> value
     min(a, b, c, ...[, key=func]) -> value

     With a single iterable argument, return its smallest item.
     With two or more arguments, return the smallest argument.

 >>> def f(x) : return 3*x**2+10*x-4

 >>> min(f(x) for x in range(-100,100))
-12
 >>> min(range(-100,100), key=f)
-2
 >>> f(-2)
-12