sorting a dictionary

[Alex Martelli]

dsavitsk wrote:

[about getting the largest key -- the "sorting" in the subject
is a bit of involuntary misdirection by the OP...:-)]

> def get_highest(d): # don't use the name 'dict'
>     l = d.keys()
>     l.sort()
>     return l[-1]

This is good, but it's O(N logN) -- if the dictionary is
huge, you'll be hurting.  max(d) is faster, and follows
the good rule of not reimplementing something that Python
already has as a built-in.


Alex