How do I return a list of the 3 lowest values in another list

Question

How do I return a list of the 3 lowest values in another list. For example I want to get the 3 lowest values of this list:

in_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
input: function(in_list, 3)
output: [1, 2, 3]

Answer 1

You can use heapq.nsmallest:

>>> from heapq import nsmallest
>>> in_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> nsmallest(3, in_list)
[1, 2, 3]
>>>