In Python, how to sort a dataframe containing accents?

Question

I use sort_values to sort a dataframe. The dataframe contains UTF-8 characters with accents. Here is an example:

>>> df = pd.DataFrame ( [ ['i'],['e'],['a'],['é'] ] )
>>> df.sort_values(by=[0])
   0
2  a
1  e
0  i
3  é

As you can see, the "é" with an accent is at the end instead of being after the "e" without accent.

Note that the real dataframe has several columns !

Answer 1

This is one way. The simplest solution, as suggested by @JonClements:

df = df.iloc[df[0].str.normalize('NFKD').argsort()]

An alternative, long-winded solution, normalization code courtesy of @EdChum:

df = pd.DataFrame([['i'],['e'],['a'],['é']])

df = df.iloc[df[0].str.normalize('NFKD').argsort()]

# remove accents
df[1] = df[0].str.normalize('NFKD')\
             .str.encode('ascii', errors='ignore')\
             .str.decode('utf-8')

# sort by new column, then drop
df = df.sort_values(1, ascending=True)\
       .drop(1, axis=1)

print(df)

   0
2  a
1  e
3  é
0  i

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