from pprint import pprint input = [] with open('day9_input.txt', 'r') as f: for line in f.readlines(): input.append(int(line.strip())) # Solution of problem 1 invalid_idx = 511 invalid_val = input[invalid_idx] def adder(input, low=0, high=2): s = sum(input[low:high]) if s == invalid_val: return min(input[low:high])+max(input[low:high]) elif s > invalid_val: return adder(input, low+1, high) else: return adder(input, low, high+1) print(adder(input))