Question

The problem is this

Design a function that accepts a list as an argument and returns the largest value in the list. The function should use recursion to find the largest item.

My coding so far is this

def main():
    # Prints the largest value in list
    user_input = input('Enter a list of numbers seperated by a space: ')
    user_list = user_input.split()
    print('Largest number is ', max_Number(user_list), '.')

# Recursion function that finds the maximum number in a sequence of n elements
def max_Number(S, n):
    if n == 1:  # Reaches the leftmost element in list
        return S[n-1]
    else:
        # Searches and compares numbers until largest is found
        previous = max_Number(S, n-1)
        current = S[n-1]
        if previous > current:
            return previous
        else:
            return current
main()

However, I keep getting this type error

print('Largest number is ', max_Number(user_input), '.')
TypeError: max_Number() missing 1 required positional argument: 'n'

What can I do to fix this problem and keep it recursive? Also, I would like for the string to accept as many numbers as the user would like.

Answer 1

def main():
    # Prints the largest value in list
    user_input = input('Enter a list of numbers seperated by a space: ')
    user_list = user_input.split()
    for i in range(len(user_list)):
        user_list[i] = int(user_list[i])
    print('Largest number is ', max_Number(user_list, len(user_list)), '.')


# Recursion function that finds the maximum number in a sequence of n elements
def max_Number(S, n):
    if n == 1:  # Reaches the leftmost element in list
        return S[n - 1]
    else:
        # Searches and compares numbers until largest is found
        previous = max_Number(S, n - 1)
        current = S[n - 1]
        if previous > current:
            return previous
        else:
            return current


main()