Python | Get items in sorted order from given dictionary

Given a dictionary, the task is to get all items from the dictionary in sorted order. Let’s discuss different ways we can do this task.

Method #1: Using sorted()

Python3

# Python code to demonstrate
# to get sorted items from dictionary

# initialising _dictionary
ini_dict = {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}

# printing iniial_dictionary
print("iniial_dictionary", str(ini_dict))

# getting items in sorted order
print("\nItems in sorted order")
for key in sorted(ini_dict):
    print(ini_dict[key])

Output:

iniial_dictionary {'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan', 'a': 'akshat'}

Items in sorted order
akshat
bhuvan
chandan

Time Complexity: O(n*logn), as sorted() function is used.
Auxiliary Space: O(n), where n is length of the ini_dict.

Method #2: Using d.items()

Python3

# Python code to demonstrate
# to get sorted items from dictionary

# initialising _dictionary
ini_dict = {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}

# printing iniial_dictionary
print("iniial_dictionary", str(ini_dict))

# getting items in sorted order
print("\nItems in sorted order")
for key, value in sorted(ini_dict.items()):
    print(value)

Output:

iniial_dictionary {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}

Items in sorted order
akshat
bhuvan
chandan

Method #3: Using operator

Python

# Python code to demonstrate
# to get sorted items from dictionary

import operator

# initialising _dictionary
ini_dict = {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}

# printing iniial_dictionary
print "iniial_dictionary", str(ini_dict)

# getting items in sorted order
print("\nItems in sorted order")
for key, value in sorted(ini_dict.iteritems(),
                         key=operator.itemgetter(1),
                         reverse=False):
    print key, " ", value

Output:

iniial_dictionary {'a': 'akshat', 'c': 'chandan', 'b': 'bhuvan'}

Items in sorted order
a   akshat
b   bhuvan
c   chandan

 Method #4:  Using sorted function along with a lambda function

Another approach to get the items in sorted order from a dictionary is to use the sorted function along with a lambda function as the key. The lambda function can extract the value from the tuple returned by the items method and return it. Then, the sorted function will use these values to sort the items in the dictionary. 

Here is an example:

Python3

#initializing dictionary
ini_dict = {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}

#printing initial dictionary
print("initial dictionary:", ini_dict)

# getting items in sorted order
sorted_items = sorted(ini_dict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])

#printing the sorted items
print("items in sorted order:", sorted_items)

Output

initial dictionary: {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}
items in sorted order: [('a', 'akshat'), ('b', 'bhuvan'), ('c', 'chandan')]

Time complexity: O(nlogn)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)

Method 5: Using the itemgetter function from the operator module

 Here are the steps to implement this method:

1. Import the operator module
2. Initialize the dictionary ini_dict
3. Use the itemgetter function with the sorted function to get the items in sorted order
4. Print the sorted items

Python3

#importing operator module
import operator

#initializing dictionary
ini_dict = {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}

#printing initial dictionary
print("initial dictionary:", ini_dict)

# getting items in sorted order using itemgetter
sorted_items = sorted(ini_dict.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1))

#printing the sorted items
print("items in sorted order:", sorted_items)

Output

initial dictionary: {'a': 'akshat', 'b': 'bhuvan', 'c': 'chandan'}
items in sorted order: [('a', 'akshat'), ('b', 'bhuvan'), ('c', 'chandan')]

Time complexity: O(n log n) where n is the number of items in the dictionary
Auxiliary space: O(n) where n is the number of items in the dictionary (for the sorted list of items)