python dict. if statement

Question

Can someone assist me on the proper placement of an if statement on my dict. I am try to flag any user that is NY and have them come first in the dictionary. I am able to get sort by name which I require as well but not clear how to flag any NY users

names_states = {
  'user1': 'CA',
  'user2': 'NY',
  'user7': 'CA',
  'guest': 'MN',
}


for key in sorted(names_states.iterkeys()):
   2   ...   print "%s :  %s" %(key, names_states[key])
   3   ...
   4   user1 :  CA
   5   user2 :  NY
   6   guest :  MN
   7   user7 :  CA

Answer 1

sorted(names_states.iteritems(), key=lambda x: (x[1] != 'NY', x[0]))

Answer 2

Here is an approach that first pushes the NY values to the top, while still sorting by user name as the first key, and the state as the secondary key:

{'bill': 'NY',
 'frank': 'NY',
 'guest': 'MN',
 'user1': 'CA',
 'user2': 'NY',
 'user7': 'CA'}

def keyFunc(x):
    if names_states[x] == 'NY': 
        return (False, x)
    return (x, names_states[x])

sorted(names_states.iterkeys(), key=keyFunc)

# ['bill', 'frank', 'user2', 'guest', 'user1', 'user7']

Note: Sticking with the key approach here is faster than defining a custom cmp function. The key function will only be run once for each item, whereas a cmp function will be run every single combination.