Function to take the minimum of 3 numbers

[Ben Bacarisse]

Cai Gengyang <gengyangcai at gmail.com> writes:

> I'm moving on to chapter 9
> (http://programarcadegames.com/index.php?lang=en&chapter=lab_functions)
> of programarcadegames for the time being and going back to chapter 8
> later (its just fucking frustrating and doesn't seem to work for the
> time being and I have a very bad temper).
>
> At least for chapter 9, I got the first part correct at first try ---
> define a function that takes and prints the smallest of 3 numbers. I
> pasted it here for reference and discussion.

Presumably you must do this without Python's min function?

> The code can also be
> further modified to include a clause that says that if two numbers tie
> for smallest, choose any of the two numbers.

What would be the point?  Your code already does that.

>>>> def min3(a, b, c):
>     min3 = a
>     if b < min3:
>         min3 = b    
>     if c < min3:
>         min3 = c
>         if b < c:
>             min3 = b
>     return min3

The last if is not needed.

Forced to pretend that there is no min function already, I'd be tempted
to write

  def min3(a, b, c):
      def min2(x, y):
          return x if x < y else y;
      return min2(a, min2(b, c))

-- 
Ben.