Oops, last one had a typo:
a = ['bob', 'greg', 'cindy', 'alice'] b = ['fred','barney','betty','wilma','pebbles','bambam'] c = ['jed', 'granny', 'jethro', 'ellie-mae'] d = ['bob','carol','ted','alice'] e = [a,b,c,d] for ary in e: print ary e.sort(lambda x,y:cmp(x[1],y[1])) for ary in e: print ary e.sort(lambda x,y:cmp(x[0],y[0])) for ary in e: print ary James On Wednesday 27 April 2005 10:34 am, so sayeth googleboy: > I didn't think this would be as difficult as it now seems to me. > > I am reading in a csv file that documents a bunch of different info on > about 200 books, such as title, author, publisher, isbn, date and > several other bits of info too. > > I can do a simple sort over the first field (title as it turns out), > and that is fine as far as it gets: > > > import string > > bookData = open(r'D:\path\to\books.csv', 'r') > sBookData = bookData.read() > lBooks = string.split(sBookData, '\n') > > lBooks.sort() > sorted = string.join(lBooks, '\n') > output = open(r'D:\path\to\output.csv', 'w') > output.close() > > > I really want to be able to sort the list of books based on other > criterium, and even multiple criteria (such as by author, and then by > date.) > > I am using python 2.4 and have found this site: > > http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/305304 > > and so I tried doing things like > > >>>lBooks.sort(cmp=cmp5) > > Traceback (most recent call last): > File "<interactive input>", line 1, in ? > NameError: name 'cmp5' is not defined > > (I was hoping that cmp5 meant it would use the 5th item in the lists to > sort across) > > >>> lBooks.sort(key=lambda i:i[4]) > > Traceback (most recent call last): > File "<interactive input>", line 1, in ? > File "<interactive input>", line 1, in <lambda> > IndexError: string index out of range > > > (I was hoping for similar things) > > > would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction? > > THanks! > > googleboy -- James Stroud UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics Box 951570 Los Angeles, CA 90095 http://www.jamesstroud.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
