How to apply max & min boundaries to a value without using conditional statements

Question

Problem:

Write a Python function, clip(lo, x, hi) that returns lo if x is less than lo; hi if x is greater than hi; and x otherwise. For this problem, y

Answer 1

Here is a solution, assuming that lo < hi.

def clip(lo, x, hi):
    return max(lo, min(hi, x))

How it works in each case:

• lo, when x < lo: if lo < hi, then x < hi, so min(hi, x) returns x and max(lo, x) returns lo.
• hi, when x > hi: min(hi, x) returns hi and if lo < hi, max(lo, hi) returns hi
• x, otherwise: x > lo and x < hi, so min(hi, x) returns x and max(lo, x) returns x