user137717
user137717

Reputation: 2165

Sorting tuples by element value in Python

I need to sort a list of tuples in Python by a specific tuple element, let's say it's the second element in this case. I tried

sorted(tupList, key = lambda tup: tup[1])

I have also tried

sorted(tupList, key = itemgetter(1))
'''i imported itemgetter, attrgetter, methodcaller from operator'''

but the list was returned the same both times. I checked

sorting tuples in python with a custom key

sort tuples in lists in python

https://wiki.python.org/moin/HowTo/Sorting

Upvotes: 0

Views: 218

Answers (1)

Kevin
Kevin

Reputation: 76194

I'm guessing you're calling sorted but not assigning the result anywhere. Something like:

tupList = [(2,16), (4, 42), (3, 23)]
sorted(tupList, key = lambda tup: tup[1])
print(tupList)

sorted creates a new sorted list, rather than modifying the original one. Try:

tupList = [(2,16), (4, 42), (3, 23)]
tupList = sorted(tupList, key = lambda tup: tup[1])
print(tupList)

Or:

tupList = [(2,16), (4, 42), (3, 23)]
tupList.sort(key = lambda tup: tup[1])
print(tupList)

Upvotes: 1

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