Retrieve the two highest item from a list containing 100,000 integers

Question

How can retrieve the two highest item from a list containing 100,000 integers without having to sort the entire list first?

Answer 1

This will work, but I don't know if you want to retain the items in the list:

max1 = max(myList)
myList.remove(max1)
max2 = max(myList)

If you do, you can do this:

max1 = max(myList)
idx1 = myList.index(max1)
myList.pop(idx1)

max2 = max(myList)
myList.insert(idx1,max1)