Arrays not sorting properly in python

Question

When I Try to use the sorted() function in python it only sorts the elements within each array alphabetically as the first 3 outputs are:

[u'A', u'a', u'a', u'f', u'g', u'h', u'i', u'n', u'n', u's', u't']
[u'N', u'a', u'e', u'g', u'i', u'i', u'r']
[u'C', u'a', u'e', u'm', u'n', u'o', u'o', u'r']

These should be Afghanistan, Nigeria and Cameroon respectively but instead they are only sorted within their own array.

Where have I went wrong in my code?

import urllib2
import csv
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

url = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts"
soup = BeautifulSoup(urllib2.urlopen(url))

#f= csv.writer(open("test.csv","w"))
#f.writerow(["location"])
def unique(countries):
    seen = set()
    for country in countries:
        l = country.lower()
        if l in seen:
            continue
        seen.add(l)
        yield country



for row in soup.select('table.wikitable tr'):
    cells = row.find_all('td')
    if cells:
        for location in cells[3].find_all(text=True):
            location = location.split()

            for locations in unique(location):
                print sorted(locations)

#f.writerow([location])

Kedar · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-12 03:30:46Z

1

With each iteration of the loop, you can get one or more locations (as a list). All of them need to be added to a single list to be able to sort it.

We use the extend method to do that.

locs = []  # contains all locations
for row in soup.select('table.wikitable tr'):
    cells = row.find_all('td')
    if cells:
        # location here returns a list
        for location in cells[3].find_all(text=True):
            locs.extend(location.split())

print sorted(locs)

sorted(locs) will also be a list. To print a specific element you can do

specific_element = sorted(locs)[index]

edited Mar 12, 2015 at 3:30

answered Mar 12, 2015 at 1:38

Kedar

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4 Comments

Gaddi Over a year ago

thanks this is exactly what I needed! How would I then select the fully iterated string? I've tried to print only specific elements but to no avail since print sorted(locs[any number]) says its out of range

Kedar Over a year ago

I have updated my answer. sorted takes a list, but locs[index] will give you one element. To get element out of the sorted list you must do sorted(locs)[index].

Gaddi Over a year ago

So when I do this I get a lot of [ ] values then after a while it comes up the first name then eventually all the names, how would I select the very last iterable?

Kedar Over a year ago

To get the last sorted location? sorted(locs)[-1]. Negative indexing selects elements starting from the end of the list.

Eric · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-12 01:28:21Z

1

Your variable names are bad, and are confusing you. location is a list of locations, and locations is a single location!

you want:

for locations in cells[3].find_all(text=True):
    locations = locations.split()

    for location in sorted(unique(locations)):
        print location

answered Mar 12, 2015 at 1:28

Eric

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