Steven D'Aprano wrote: ... > If you were to ask, "which is bigger, 1+2j or 3+4j?" then you > are asking a question about mathematical size. There is no unique answer > (although taking the absolute value must surely come close) and the > expression 1+2j > 3+4j is undefined. > > But if you ask "which should come first in a list, 1+2j or 3+4j?" then you > are asking about a completely different thing. The usual way of sorting > arbitrary chunks of data within a list is by dictionary order, and in > dictionary order 1+2j comes before 3+4j because 1 comes before 3. > > This suggests that perhaps sort needs a keyword argument "style", one of > "dictionary", "numeric" or "datetime", which would modify how sorting > would compare keys. > > Perhaps in Python 3.0.
What's wrong with the Python 2.4 approach of >>> clist = [7+8j, 3+4j, 1+2j, 5+6j] >>> clist.sort(key=lambda z: (z.real, z.imag)) >>> clist [(1+2j), (3+4j), (5+6j), (7+8j)] ? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
