How to Find the Longest String of a List in Python : 4 Methods

A list is a data structure that allows you to store multiple variables in a single variable. There are many inbuilt functions provided by the list that allows you to manipulate the list like addition, and deletions of an element e,t,c. In this post, you will know how to find the longest string of a list in Python using various methods.

Methods to Find the Longest String of a List in Python

In this section, you will know all the methods to find the longest string of a list in Python.

Method 1: Find the longest string using a loop

You can find the longest string in a list using the for loop. In this example, I will first define a function that contains a for loop to iterate each item of the list. It will then compare the adjacent strings to find the longest string using a condition. Below are the lines of code to find the longest string using a loop.

def find_longest_string(lst):
    longest = ""
    for item in lst:
        if len(item) > len(longest):
            longest = item
    return longest

my_list = ["abc", "abcderf", "abcd", "ab", "a"]
longest_string = find_longest_string(my_list)
print("Longest string:", longest_string)

Output

Finding the longest string using the for loop

Method 2: Use the max() function

The second method to find the longest string in the Python list is the use of the max() function with the key =len as the second argument. The max() function will find the longest string when you pass the input Python string as the first argument.

Run the below lines of code to find the longest string.

my_list = ["abc", "abcderf", "abcd", "ab", "a"]
longest_string = max(my_list, key=len)
print("Longest string:", longest_string)

Output

Method 3: Using list comprehension

The third method to find the longest string is the use of list comprehension. Here you will use the same function max with the key arguments inside the list comprehension to find the longest string.

Use the below lines of code.

my_list = ["abc", "abcderf", "abcd", "ab", "a"]
longest_string = max((item for item in my_list), key=len)
print("Longest string:", longest_string)

Output

Finding the longest string using the list comprehension

Method 4: Using the sorted() function

The other method to find the longest string is the use of the sorted() function. Here you will pass three parameters. The first is your input string list, the second is the key =len and the third is the reverse=True. All these parameters play an important role to find the longest string.

Run the below lines of code to find the longest string.

my_list = ["abc", "abcderf", "abcd", "ab", "a"]
longest_string = sorted(my_list, key=len, reverse=True)[0]
print("Longest string:", longest_string)

Output

Finding the longest string using the sorted function

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have learned how to create a Python list of strings. You have to know how to find the longest string in the list of strings using different methods like a loop, list comprehension, max() function, etc. You can use any methods you want as per convenience.

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