Python Finding the median function error

Question

Could anyone please explain to me why this is not working? The error message I'm getting is: TypeError: list indices must be integers or slices, not float.

def median(lst):
    s = sorted(lst)
    l = len(lst)/2
    if len(lst) % 2 == 0:
        print((s[l] + s[l-1])/2.0)
    else:
        print(s[l])
median([3,3,5,6,7,8,1])

Answer 1

error you made is in calculating l

dividing using operator / returns actual division i.e. a floating point value while // returns only quotient i.e. an integer

hence

you should calculate l as follows

l = len(lst) // 2

or convert l to int using

l  = int(l)