Alphabetized dictionary listings

[Quinn Dunkan]

On Wed, 17 Nov 1999 14:23:51 GMT, Ken Power <iam at not.you> wrote:
>Why does this occur? More to the point, how can I have the print-out
>be in alphabetical order?
>
>>>> myList = ['Abel', 'Dexter', 'Francis', 'Matthew', 'Samantha', 'Tyrone']
>>>> myDict = {}
>>>> for name in myList:
>	myDict[name] = 0
>	
>	
>>>> for key in myDict.keys():
>	print key
>	
>	
>Tyrone
>Samantha
>Francis
>Abel
>Matthew
>Dexter

Both of your examples assume there is some sort of order to a dictionary...
there isn't.  The documentation for the keys() method in the reference manual
at 2.1.6 says: "Keys and values are listed in random order."  This has to do
with the way dictionaries are implemented internally.

sort() to the rescue!  The usual idiom for what you want is:

k = dict.keys()
k.sort()
for i in k:
    print i

If you're wondering why you can't just do

for i in dict.keys().sort():
    print i

check out faq 6.20

python-doesn't-allow-!s-in-identifiers-ly y'rs