Problem 16. Return the largest number that is adjacent to a zero

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This example comes from Steve Eddins' blog: Learning Lessons from a One-Liner

Write a function that takes a list or array of numbers as input and return the largest number that is adjacent to a zero.

Example:

 Input  x = [1 5 3 0 2 7 0 8 9 1 0]
 Output y is 8

This problem was originally posed by Greg Wilson of Software Carpentry.

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Last Solution submitted on Jun 22, 2025

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Geoff on 8 May 2012

Good comment, Gaik. A lot of solutions (including mine) will break with two consecutive zeros.

Nicolae Preda on 23 Sep 2013

Why: "Input x = [-9 -3 0 0 -5 0 -2 -1] Output y is -2."???
Output should be 0. It doesn't say anywhere that the number adjacent to a zero must be nonzero!

Kendale Greenidge-Bullock on 8 Dec 2017

This was challenging

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Problem 16. Return the largest number that is adjacent to a zero

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