New submission from Ole Laursen <o...@iola.dk>: On my Python 3.1, help() for sorted returns
sort(...) L.sort(key=None, reverse=False) -- stable sort *IN PLACE* sorted(...) sorted(iterable, key=None, reverse=False) --> new sorted list Kindly suggest this be expanded. Here's some text: sort(...) Sorts the sequence with a fast stable sort. The sequence is modified in place. To remind you of this, the function always returns None. Example: a = [1, 3, 2] a.sort() # a is now [1, 2, 3] Use the "sorted()" built-in function if you need to preserve the original list. Set "reverse" to True to sort the elements in reverse order. A function for extracting a key for comparison from each object can be passed in as "key", e.g. a = [{'k': 'foo'}, {'k': 'bar'}] a.sort(key=lambda x: x['k']) # a is now [{'k': 'bar'}, {'k': 'foo'}] Note that "key" can be used to solve many sorting problems, e.g. key=str.lower can be used for case-insensitive sorting and key=lambda x: (x['a'], x['b']) can be used to sort by first 'a' then 'b'. The sort is stable which means that the relative order of elements that compare equal is not changed. sorted(...) Sorts the sequence with a fast stable sort and returns a new list with the result. Example: [same text as before] I'm not sure how this interacts with what's in the online help (http://docs.python.org/3.1/library/stdtypes.html search for "sort("), maybe the text could just be copied over. I think it's important to give copy-pasteable examples for something as important as this, and hint at how you solve common sorting problems. ---------- assignee: georg.brandl components: Documentation messages: 94863 nosy: georg.brandl, olau severity: normal status: open title: Improve documentation of list.sort and sorted() _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue7257> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com