Sorting Multidimesional array(newbie)

[Fredrik Lundh]

Brian Mills wrote:
>

>> but using a compare function instead of a key mapper is not good advice,
>> in general.  brief discussion here:
>> http://effbot.org/pyfaq/i-want-to-do-a-complicated-sort-can-you-do-a-schwartzian-transform-in-python
> 
> Is this mostly because of the stability problem described here:
> http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/52234 ?

as mentioned in the comments to that recipe, Python's sort has been 
stable since 2.3.

 > Or is it more a performance issue due having to make so many function 
calls?

exactly (see the last sentence in the FAQ entry).

</F>