Dictionary : items()

[koranthala]

Hi,
   Dictionary has the items method which returns the value as a list
of tuples.
   I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to have an extra
parameter - sort - to allow the tuples to be sorted as the desire of
users.
   Currently what I do is:

class SDict(dict):
    def items(self, sort=None):
        '''Returns list. Difference from basic dict in that it is
sortable'''
        if not sort:
            return super(SDict, self).items()
        return sorted(self.iteritems(), key=sort)

Usage:
for a dictionary of strings sorted:
        l = abcd.items(sort=lambda x:(x[1].lower(), x[0]))

Now what I wanted was to incorporate this in the basic dictionary
itself. Not only items(), but the methods similar to it - iteritems
etc all can also have this parameter.

Please let me know your views.
Is this a good enough idea to be added to the next version of Python?