Birthday Cake Candles - Hackerrank

birthday_cake_candles.py

#!/bin/python3

'''
Colleen is turning n years old! Therefore, she has n candles of 
various heights on her cake, and candle i has height . 
Because the taller candles tower over the shorter ones, Colleen can only blow out the tallest candles.
Given the n for each individual candle, find and print the number of candles she can successfully blow out.
'''

import sys

def birthdayCakeCandles(n, ar):
    #we sort the array descending, then it's matter
    #to check the first number how many times is repeated
    ar.sort(reverse=True)
    firstNum = -1
    first = True
    count = 0
    for a in ar:
        if first == True:
            firstNum = a
            count +=1
            first = False
        else:
            if firstNum == a:
                count+=1

    return count

n = int(input().strip())
ar = list(map(int, input().strip().split(' ')))
result = birthdayCakeCandles(n, ar)
print(result)