Manage empty list/invalid input when finding max/min value of list (Python)

Question

I'm finding max value and min value of a list by using max(list) and min(list) in Python. However, I wonder how to manage empty lists.

For example if the list is an empty list [], the program raises 'ValueError: min() arg is an empty sequence' but I would like to know how to make the program just print 'empty list or invalid input' instead of just crashing. How to manage those errors?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23048944/manage-empty-list-invalid-input-when-finding-max-min-value-of-list-python

Answer 1

Catch and handle the exception.

try:
    print(min(l), max(l))
except (ValueError, TypeError):
    print('empty list or invalid input')

ValueError is raised with an empty sequence. TypeError is raised when the sequence contains unorderable types.