Sorting Lists of Dictionaries
Frequently you want to sort a list of dictionaries, based on some particular key.
For example:
There are many ways to do this. Here's the fastest way to do it, as it avoids using a custom comparison function, instead using builtin comparisons. This is the decorate-sort-undecorate pattern, or the Schwartzian transform if you're coming from Perl.
(The variable was named dict_ because dict is already a builtin.)
Starting with Py2.4 the list.sort() method provides a key= argument for doing the transform in a single step. The new sorted() built-in function goes a step further and encapsulates making a new sorted list while leaving the original intact. Also, the new operator.itemgetter() function helps by constructing functions for key access:
>>> from operator import itemgetter >>> result = sorted(undecorated, key=itemgetter('key2'))