Most Endangered Species - codepath/compsci_guides GitHub Wiki

U-nderstand

Understand what the interviewer is asking for by using test cases and questions about the problem.

• Q: What is the desired outcome?
  • A: To find the species with the lowest population from a list of species.
• Q: What input is provided?
  • A: A list of dictionaries species_list, where each dictionary contains the name, habitat, and population of a species.

Input: species_list =
  [
    {"name": "Amur Leopard",
     "habitat": "Temperate forests",
     "population": 84
    },
    {"name": "Javan Rhino",
     "habitat": "Tropical forests",
     "population": 72
    },
    {"name": "Vaquita",
     "habitat": "Marine",
     "population": 10
    }
  ]
Expected Output: Vaquita

P-lan

Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.

General Idea: Iterate through the list of species and keep track of the species with the lowest population.

1) Initialize the most endangered species as the first species in `species_list`.
2) Iterate through the list starting from the second element.
3) If the current species has a lower population than the current most endangered species, update the most endangered species.
4) Return the name of the most endangered species.

⚠️ Common Mistakes

• Not properly handling ties by returning the species with the lowest index.

I-mplement

def most_endangered(species_list):
    # Initialize the most endangered species as the first species in the list
    most_endangered_species = species_list[0]
    
    # Iterate through each species in the list starting from the second element
    for species in species_list[1:]:
        # If the current species has a lower population, update the most endangered species
        if species["population"] < most_endangered_species["population"]:
            most_endangered_species = species

    # Return the name of the species with the lowest population
    return most_endangered_species["name"]