sorting list of tuples by second (third...) tuple item

[Just van Rossum]

In article <7xzo2bnt1m.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
 Paul Rubin <phr-n2002a at nightsong.com> wrote:

> kp87 at lycos.com (kevin parks) writes:
> > How would you sort something based on 2 criteria. Say you have a list
> > of lists (i hate tuples). first thing you want is everything sorted by
> > the first value and then everything that has the same value for [0]
> > then sorted by [1]
> 
> # try this:
> 
> yourlist =  [['i3', 24.0, 0.5, 101, 7, 6, 7, 0, 0, 0, -1, 0, 5], \
>              ['i8', 82.25, 0.75, 101, 7, 6, 5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.02, 2], \
>              ['i9', 9, 0, 255], \
>              ['i8', 83.0, 1.0, 101, 1, 1, 5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.02, 2]]
> 
> def compare_lists(x,y):
>   a = cmp(x[0],y[0])
>   if a: return a
>   return cmp(x[1],y[1])
> 
> yourlist.sort(compare_lists)

Nah, just do this:

  yourlist.sort()

Just