Searching for most pythonic/least stupid way to do something simple

[david jensen]

Hi all,

This may be a complete brainfart, but it's been puzzling me for a day
or two (!).
Sorry for not describing "something" in the subject, but it's hard to
describe succinctly:

I have a short list of non-zero positive integers (say
myList=[2,5,8,3,5]). I need to return five lists of non-negative
numbers, such that for five different "share sizes", myList[0] and
myList[1] will share twice the smaller amount...

def getOutcomes():
    outcomes=[]
    if myList[0]<=myList[1]:
        amountToShare=2*myList[0]
        remainder=myList[1]-myList[0]
        outcome.append((amountToShare, remainder)+myList[2:])   #
shares are (100%, 0)
        outcome.append((amountToShare*0.75, remainder
+amountToShare*0.25)+myList[2:])   #shares are (75%, 25%), and exactly
the same for (50%,50%), (25%, 75%), and (0,100%)
...
...
    return outcomes

i.e. for the above myList, outcomes=[[4,1,8,3,5], [3,2,8,3,5],
[2,5,8,3,5],[1,6,8,3,5],[0,7,8,3,5]]

if myList[0]>myList[1], i want exactly the opposite to happen (i.e.,
just switching what happens to positions 0 and 1)

Obviously, i can just write the code again, in an else, switching
indices 0 and 1. Or, I could just have a test at the beginning, switch
them if they are in the order "big, small", and then switch them again
at the end in a list comprehension. Both ideas seem terribly silly,
and there must be an obvious way to do it that I'm not seeing.

any help?

many thanks

dmj