Sort a list of tuples by 2nd item (integer value)

list, python, tuples

Solution

Try using the `key` keyword argument of `sorted()`, which sorts in increasing order by default:

sorted(
    [('abc', 121), ('abc', 231), ('abc', 148), ('abc', 221)], 
    key=lambda x: x[1]
)

`key` should be a function that identifies how to retrieve the comparable element from your data structure. In your case, it is the second element of the tuple, so we access `[1]`.

For optimization, see jamylak's response using `operator.itemgetter(1)`, which is essentially a faster version of `lambda x: x[1]`.

Problem

I have a list of tuples that looks something like this: ``` [('abc', 121),('abc', 231),('abc', 148), ('abc',221)] ``` I want to sort this list in ascending order by the integer value inside the tuples. Is it possible?

Original source

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