How to sort a list of dictionaries by a value of the dictionary?

It may look cleaner using a key instead a cmp:

newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=lambda k: k['name']) 

or as J.F.Sebastian and others suggested,

from operator import itemgetter

newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=itemgetter('name')) 

For completeness (as pointed out in comments by fitzgeraldsteele), add reverse=True to sort descending

newlist = sorted(l, key=itemgetter('name'), reverse=True)

3 years ago

#The sorted() function takes a key= parameter
newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=lambda k: k['name'])

#Alternatively, you can use operator.itemgetter instead of defining the function yourself

from operator import itemgetter
newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=itemgetter('name'))

3 years ago

Use the key argument to sort the dictionary by value.
For example

my_list = [{'name':'Homer', 'age':39}, {'name':'Bart', 'age':10}]

my_list = sorted(my_list, key=lambda k: k['name'])

3 years ago