Gilles Ganault wrote:
Hello
I use a dictionary to keep a list of users connected to a web site.
To avoid users from creating login names that start with digits in
order to be listed at the top, I'd like to sort the list differently
every minute so that it'll start with the next letter, eg. display the
list from A...Zdigits the first time, then B...ZAdigits, etc.
That way, users have no incentive to create login names that start
with either a digit or letter A.
I see that dictionaries can be sorted using the... sort() method, but
is it possible to have Python start sorting from a different letter?
Thank you.
Seems to me the other solutions I've seen so far are more complex than
needed. I figure you either want an unordered list, in which case you
could use random.shuffle(), or you want a list that's sorted, but starts
somewhere in the middle, at an arbitrary place, goes to the end, and
wraps back to the beginning. So use random.randint() to choose an index
within the list, and concatenate two slices of the list, based on that
index in reverse order.
And don't bother generating it each minute, but simply generate it each
time you need it. I doubt if the cost of generating it is much
different than the cost of checking the time.
I guess there's a third possibility, that you don't want some of the G
names at the beginning, and some at the end. In that case, I'd generate
the random index as above, then increment it till the first character of
the item changes. Use that index as your split point.
If you like any of these, I could elaborate with some code. But each
approach is pretty straightforward.
DaveA
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