# this is an example to demonstrate the programming technique DATA = """ # data souce: http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_pop.htm # Country / Captial / Area [sq. km] / 2002 Population Estimate China / Beijing / 9,596,960 / 1,284,303,705 India / New Delhi / 3,287,590 / 1,045,845,226 United States / Washington DC / 9,629,091 / 280,562,489 Indonesia / Jakarta / 1,919,440 / 231,328,092 Russia / Moscow / 17,075,200 / 144,978,573 """ def initData(): """ parse and return a country list of (name, captial, area, population) """ countries = [] for line in DATA.splitlines(): # filter out blank lines/comment lines line = line.strip() if not line or line.startswith('#'): continue # 4 fields separated by '/' parts = map(string.strip, line.split('/')) country, captial, area, population = parts # remove commas in numbers area = int(area.replace(',','')) population = int(population.replace(',','')) countries.append((country, captial, area, population)) return countries def findLargestCountry(countries): # your algorithm here def main(): countries = initData() print findLargestCountry(countries)