Level 5Exercise #108

Kth largest value

Return the kth largest value from an unsorted list.

What you’ll practice

This Level 5 exercise focuses on size-k heap in the Algorithms curriculum. Solve the challenge prompt above using clear, idiomatic Python and the relevant language or standard-library tools.

Relevant Python reference: heapq — Heap queue algorithm.

Sample Test Cases

Example #1

Input:kth_largest([3,2,1,5,6,4], k=2)

Output:5

Reference Solution

Reveal Reference Solution

def kth_largest(values: list[int], k: int) -> int:
    import heapq
    heap = values[:k]
    heapq.heapify(heap)
    for value in values[k:]:
        if value > heap[0]: heapq.heapreplace(heap, value)
    return heap[0]

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Kth largest value

What you’ll practice

Sample Test Cases

Further Reading

Reference Solution