Column with a few zeros

Write a function $zcol(mat)$ that receives an $n\times m$ matrix of integers $mat$ and finds the first column with at least a 10% of zeros with respect to the column size, returning the value of that column at the first row. If no such column exists, it must return the sum of all the elements of the matrix. You can count on both the number of rows and the number of columns being strictly positive.

Observation

You can safely assume only that the rows of the matrix are either tuples or lists, and that the matrix itself is either a tuple of rows or a list of rows.

Problem information

Author: José Luis Balcázar

Generation: 2026-01-25T16:52:02.152Z