Sort multidimensional array based on 2nd element of the subarray

Question

I have an array like this:

[['G', 10], ['A', 22], ['S', 1], ['P', 14], ['V', 13], ['T', 7], ['C', 0], ['I', 219]] 

I'd like to sort it based on the 2nd element in descending order. An ideal output would be:

[['I', 219], ['A', 22], ['P', 14], ... ] 

Answer 1

list.sort, sorted accept optional key parameter. key function is used to generate comparison key.

>>> sorted(lst, key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True) [['I', 219], ['A', 22], ['P', 14], ['V', 13], ['G', 10], ...]  >>> sorted(lst, key=lambda x: -x[1]) [['I', 219], ['A', 22], ['P', 14], ['V', 13], ['G', 10], ...]  >>> import operator >>> sorted(lst, key=operator.itemgetter(1), reverse=True) [['I', 219], ['A', 22], ['P', 14], ['V', 13], ['G', 10], ...] 

Answer 2

Use itemgetter

from operator import itemgetter a = [[1, 3, 5], [2, 511, 7], [17, 233, 1]] a = sorted(a, key=itemgetter(1)) 

Output : [[1, 3, 5], [17, 233, 1], [2, 511, 7]]

itemgetter can also be used to sort by multiple subarrays.