How can I order a python list by the elements?

Question

I have this list called scores: [[['test', 1]], [['t', 4]], [['egrd', 8]], [['fds', 2]], [['dfs', 23]], [['wtr', 0]], [['reer', 1]]]

I am trying to order it by the number in each element so it becomes: [[['dfs', 23]], [['egrd', 8]], [['t', 4]], [['fds', 2]]. [['test', 1]], [['reer', 1]], [['wtr', 0]]]

I tried looping through the array and adding elements to a new a array based on their number element like this:

for x in range(0, 4): # loop through mulitple times to make sure it is ordered

    for i in range(0, len(scores) - 1):

        try:

            if scores[i][0][1] > scores[i + 1][0][1]: # compare each element against the one in front of it
                top_scores.append(scores[i]) # append to the new array

        except IndexError:
            pass

It returns this list: [[['egrd', 8]], [['dfs', 23]], [['egrd', 8]], [['dfs', 23]], [['egrd', 8]], [['dfs', 23]], [['egrd', 8]], [['dfs', 23]]]

Any help is much appreciated.

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 10 '19 at 20:49

2

Use sorted with a custom key function

sorted(scores, key=lambda x: x[0][1], reverse=True)

answered Oct 10 '19 at 20:49

tomjn

5,100
1
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24

sorry for being dumb but where do i put this? do i put it in place of the loops? or do i put it in the loops? – nat Oct 10 '19 at 20:57
Just forget about the loops `top_scores = sorted(scores, key=lambda x: x[0][1], reverse=True)` and you are done! – tomjn Oct 10 '19 at 20:58
it works! thank you so much! – nat Oct 10 '19 at 21:02
@nat no problem, feel free to accept the answer if it was useful – tomjn Oct 10 '19 at 21:06

Mohsen_Fatemi · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-10T21:01:15.033

0

You can define a lambda function as a key in order to do this :

sorted(scores, key=lambda x: x[0][1], reverse=True)

edited Oct 10 '19 at 21:01

answered Oct 10 '19 at 20:51

Mohsen_Fatemi

2,183
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25

How can I order a python list by the elements?

2 Answers2