Using namedtuples field names for column indices in a list of lists

[Peter Otten]

Rhodri James wrote:

> On 09/01/17 21:40, Deborah Swanson wrote:
>> Peter Otten wrote, on January 09, 2017 6:51 AM
>>>
>>> records = sorted(
>>>     set(records),
>>>     key=operator.attrgetter("Description")
>>> )
>>
>> Good, this is confirmation that 'sorted()' is the way to go. I want a 2
>> key sort, Description and Date, but I think I can figure out how to do
>> that.
> 
> There's a handy trick that you can use because the sorting algorithm is
> stable.  First, sort on your secondary key.  This will leave the data in
> the wrong order, but objects with the same primary key will be in the
> right order by secondary key relative to each other.
> 
> Then sort on your primary key.  Because the sorting algorithm is stable,
> it won't disturb the relative order of objects with the same primary
> key, giving you the sort that you want!
> 
> So assuming you want your data sorted by date, and then by description
> within the same date, it's just:
> 
> records = sorted(
>      sorted(
>          set(records),
>          key=operator.attrgetter("Description")
>      ),
>      key=operator.attrgetter("Date")
> )

While stable sort is nice in this case you can just say

key=operator.attrgetter("Description", "Date")

Personally I'd only use sorted() once and then switch to the sort() method.