Hello, Can sort not modify read-only location. >>> d {'a': 1, 'c': 3, 'b': 2} >>> id(d) 412816 >>> id(d.keys()) 404296 >>> type(d.keys()) <type 'list'> >>> print d.keys().sort() None We can so sorted(d.keys()) and it works but was just wondering whether sort which modifies in-place fails when the location is read-only. Thanks, Bhaskar.