Sorting dataframe based on multiple columns mixing words and numericals

Question

Let's say I have the following dataframe:

  Priority   Color Risk
1        1   Green    8
2        9     Red   10
3        5  Orange    4
4        3   Green    8
5        3     Red   9
6        7  Orange    4

I would like to sort first on the 'color' column in the order of 'Red'> 'Orange'> 'Green'. Within that, I would like to sort on the 'priority' column in descending order (while maintaining the previous sort on the color column), and finally sort on the 'risk' column in descending order (while maintaining the previous sorts on the color and priority columns). So the result should look like this:

  Priority   Color Risk
2        9     Red   10
5        3     Red   9
6        7  Orange    4
3        5  Orange    4
4        3   Green    8
1        1   Green    8

Does anyone know how to do this?

Possible duplicate of [How to sort a dataFrame in python pandas by two or more columns?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17141558/how-to-sort-a-dataframe-in-python-pandas-by-two-or-more-columns) — G. Anderson, Jul 22 '19 at 19:33

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 22 '19 at 19:38

0

just sort.

df.sort_values(['Color', 'Priority', 'Risk'],ascending=False)

answered Jul 22 '19 at 19:38

DeepBlue

415
4
9

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 22 '19 at 19:39

If you transform color into a categorical variable, you can then define the order (which will be respected in any sorting).

df['Color'] = pd.Categorical(df['Color'], ["Red", "Orange", "Green"])
df.sort_values(['Color','Priority','Risk'], ascending=[True,False,False])

Out[1]: 
   Risk  Priority   Color
1    10         9     Red
4     9         3     Red
5     4         7  Orange
2     4         5  Orange
3     8         3   Green
0     8         1   Green

Some useful info on this answer too here

Sorting dataframe based on multiple columns mixing words and numericals

2 Answers2