Python Program to Sort the list according to the column using lambda

Last Updated : 11 May, 2020

Given a list, the task is to sort the list according to the column using the lambda approach.

Examples:

Input :
array = [[1, 3, 3], [2, 1, 2], [3, 2, 1]]
Output :
Sorted array specific to column 0, [[1, 3, 3], [2, 1, 2], [3, 2, 1]]
Sorted array specific to column 1, [[2, 1, 2], [3, 2, 1], [1, 3, 3]]
Sorted array specific to column 2, [[3, 2, 1], [2, 1, 2], [1, 3, 3]]

Input :
array = [[‘java’, 1995], [‘c++’, 1983], [‘python’, 1989]]
Output :
Sorted array specific to column 0, [[‘c++’, 1983], [‘java’, 1995], [‘python’, 1989]]
Sorted array specific to column 1, [[‘c++’, 1983], [‘python’, 1989], [‘java’, 1995]]

Approach:

sorted() built-in function in Python gives a new sorted list from an iterable.
key parameter to specify a function to be called on each list element prior to making comparisons.
lambda is used as a function to iterate on each element.
key = lambda x:x[i] here i is the column on which respect to sort the whole list.

Below is the implementation.

# Python code to sorting list  
# according to the column 
  
# sortarray function is defined 
def sortarray(array): 
      
    for i in range(len(array[0])): 
          
        # sorting array in ascending  
        # order specific to column i, 
        # here i is the column index 
        sortedcolumn = sorted(array, key = lambda x:x[i]) 
          
        # After sorting array Column 1 
        print("Sorted array specific to column {}, \ 
        {}".format(i, sortedcolumn)) 
      
# Driver code  
if __name__ == '__main__':  
      
    # array of size 3 X 2  
    array = [['java', 1995], ['c++', 1983], 
             ['python', 1989]] 
      
    # passing array in sortarray function 
    sortarray(array) 

Output:

Sorted array specific to column 0, [[‘c++’, 1983], [‘java’, 1995], [‘python’, 1989]]
Sorted array specific to column 1, [[‘c++’, 1983], [‘python’, 1989], [‘java’, 1995]]

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