Python program to find the highest 3 values in a dictionary

In this article, we will learn how to find the highest 3 values in a dictionary using different Python approaches.

Problem Statement

Given a dictionary, we need to find the three highest values and display them along with their corresponding keys.

Using collections.Counter

The Counter class provides a most_common() method that returns the n most common elements and their counts ?

from collections import Counter

# Initial Dictionary
my_dict = {'a': 3, 'b': 4, 'c': 6, 'd': 5, 'e': 21}
counter = Counter(my_dict)

# Finding 3 highest values
highest = counter.most_common(3)

print("Dictionary with 3 highest values:")
print("Keys: Values")
for key, value in highest:
    print(f"{key} : {value}")

Dictionary with 3 highest values:
Keys: Values
e : 21
c : 6
d : 5

Using heapq.nlargest()

The heapq.nlargest() function finds the n largest elements from an iterable based on a key function ?

import heapq

# Initial Dictionary
my_dict = {'a': 3, 'b': 4, 'c': 6, 'd': 5, 'e': 21}

# Finding 3 highest values using heapq
highest = heapq.nlargest(3, my_dict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])

print("Dictionary with 3 highest values:")
print("Keys: Values")
for key, value in highest:
    print(f"{key} : {value}")

Dictionary with 3 highest values:
Keys: Values
e : 21
c : 6
d : 5

Using sorted() with Lambda

We can sort the dictionary items by values in descending order and take the first 3 elements ?

# Initial Dictionary
my_dict = {'a': 3, 'b': 4, 'c': 6, 'd': 5, 'e': 21}

# Finding 3 highest values using sorted
highest = sorted(my_dict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True)[:3]

print("Dictionary with 3 highest values:")
print("Keys: Values")
for key, value in highest:
    print(f"{key} : {value}")

Dictionary with 3 highest values:
Keys: Values
e : 21
c : 6
d : 5

Comparison

Conclusion

Use heapq.nlargest() for large dictionaries as it's most efficient. For smaller dictionaries, sorted() provides a simple and readable solution. Counter.most_common() is ideal when working with frequency data.