How to display a dictionary within a dictionary in a sorted order with Python?

Question

I have a dictionary that contains dictionary data. I am trying to output the dictionary sorted by one of the values in the sub-dictionary. (the State). Also, would it be difficult to perform a secondary sort on the age?

Can someone explain how this is done?

My current code:

dDict = {}

dDict.update( { "Bob Barker":   {"age":50, "city":"Los Angeles", "state":"CA" } } )
dDict.update( { "Steve Norton": {"age":53, "city":"Vulcan",      "state":"CA" } } )
dDict.update( { "John Doe":     {"age":27, "city":"Salem",       "state":"OR" } } )
dDict.update( { "Mary Smith":   {"age":24, "city":"Detroit",     "state":"MI" } } )

print("Name         Age City        State")
for d in dDict:
    print ("{:12} {:3} {:11} {:2}".format(d, dDict[d]["age"], dDict[d]["city"], dDict[d]["state"]) )

Output:

Name         Age City        State
Steve Norton  53 Vulcan      CA
Mary Smith    24 Detroit     MI
Bob Barker    50 Los Angeles CA
John Doe      27 Salem       OR

What I would like:

Name         Age City        State
Bob Barker    50 Los Angeles CA
Steve Norton  53 Vulcan      CA
Mary Smith    24 Detroit     MI
John Doe      27 Salem       OR

Possible duplicate of [Sort nested dictionary by value, and remainder by another value, in Python](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4110665/sort-nested-dictionary-by-value-and-remainder-by-another-value-in-python) — R4444, May 02 '19 at 19:38

R4444 · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-02T19:30:20.013

For python 3.6 and > you can do:

dDict = {}

dDict.update( { "Bob Barker":   {"age":50, "city":"Los Angeles", "state":"CA" } } )
dDict.update( { "Steve Norton": {"age":53, "city":"Vulcan",      "state":"CA" } } )
dDict.update( { "John Doe":     {"age":27, "city":"Salem",       "state":"OR" } } )
dDict.update( { "Mary Smith":   {"age":24, "city":"Detroit",     "state":"MI" } } )

print(dDict)

dDict = (dict(sorted(dDict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]["state"])))

print("Name         Age City        State")
for d in dDict:
    print ("{:12} {:3} {:11} {:2}".format(d, dDict[d]["age"], dDict[d]["city"], dDict[d]["state"]) )

Prints:

Bob Barker    50 Los Angeles CA
Steve Norton  53 Vulcan      CA
Mary Smith    24 Detroit     MI
John Doe      27 Salem       OR

For me.

In python 3.6 and above, you can sort the dictionary like this:

dDict = (dict(sorted(dDict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]["state"])))

Here, I entered the lambda x: x[1]["state"] in the key, as you wanted to sort by state. You can change this if you want to sort some other way.

For python 2.7, you can do:

from collections import OrderedDict
dDict = OrderedDict(sorted(dDict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]["state"]))

to get the similar result.

Thank you. Your solution works well and I think I understand how it's working. — Calab, May 02 '19 at 19:33

How to display a dictionary within a dictionary in a sorted order with Python?

1 Answers1