Sorting lists by a numerical value in each string

Question

I would like to be able to sort a list of strings with each one containing a numerical value and a word.

lst = ["1 Make", "7 William", "35 In", "22 Collins's"]

Desired output:

["1 Make",  "7 William", "22 Collins's", "35 In"]

Using sorted(lst) I get:

["1 Make", "22 Collins's", "35 In", "7 William"]

sorted can take a key argument, which is a function applied to the elements of the list to determine the sorted order, i.e. the element x is sorted as if it were key(x). Which leaves you to figure out what function to use. — hoyland
– hoyland, Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 1:44

jpp · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-10 01:43:11Z

4

This should work:

lst = ["1 Make", "7 William", "22 Collins's", "35 In"]

sorted(lst, key=lambda x: int(x.split(' ')[0]), reverse=True)

# ['35 In', "22 Collins's", '7 William', '1 Make']

answered Feb 10, 2018 at 1:43

jpp

166k37 gold badges301 silver badges362 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

billjamesdev Over a year ago

Will work, though probably non-optimal for large sets

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Sorting lists by a numerical value in each string

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related