How to sort records in file

[Peter Otten]

Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2004-08-13, Lad <export at hope.cz> wrote:
> 
>> What is the best( easiest)way how to sort a file?
> 
> $ man sort
> 
> ;)
> 
>> I have a file where each record consists of 3 fields( 3 words)
>> and I would like to sort records by the first field( word)in
>> each record.
> 
> lines = file('myfilename').readlines()
> lines.sort()
> for l in lines:
>     print l,
> 

Or

lines = file('myfilename').readlines()
lines = [(line.split(None, 1)[0], i, line) 
         for (i, line) in enumerate(lines)]
lines.sort()
lines = [line for (_, _, line) in lines]
for l in lines:
    print l,

if you want to keep the order stable.

Peter