How to sort a list to look like [1, A, 2, B, 3, C,...]

Question

I want to sort a list that look like this: ['3', '6', 'B', '2', '1', 'C', 'A'] to something like this: ['1', 'A', '2', 'B', '3', 'C', '6'].

Thanks in advance!

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It isn't clear to me what the logic behind this sorting order is. There are multiple ways to interpret it that would result in this order. — interjay, Mar 17 '20 at 16:05
check this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7946798/interleave-multiple-lists-of-the-same-length-in-python — Ala Tarighati, Mar 17 '20 at 16:08

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '20 at 16:13

2

You can try this.

l=['3', '6', 'B', '2', '1', 'C', 'A']
sorted(['3', '6', 'B', '2', 'A', 'C', '1'],key=lambda x:(int(x),0) if x.isnumeric() else ((ord(x)-64)%26,1))
# ['1', 'A', '2', 'B', '3', 'C', '6']

Since numbers are given more priority I made (int(x),0) for number and for alphabets ((ord(x)-64)%26,1) for tie-breaking.

answered Mar 17 '20 at 16:13

Ch3steR

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Nice use `zip_longest`. +1 @kederrac – Ch3steR Mar 17 '20 at 16:20

kederrac · Answer 2 · 2020-03-17T16:14:39.237

from itertools import zip_longest

l = ['3', '6', 'B', '2', '1', 'C', 'A']
num = sorted(filter(str.isnumeric, l), key=lambda x: int(x))
ch = sorted(filter(str.isalpha, l))

[ e for t in zip_longest(num, ch) for e in t if e]

output:

['1', 'A', '2', 'B', '3', 'C', '6']

first, you create 2 lists, one with the strings that represent numbers and a second list with the letters then you sort them and combine using list comprehension and itertools.zip_longest

How to sort a list to look like [1, A, 2, B, 3, C,...]

2 Answers2