Suppose there is a list like [name,score]
record = [['Harry',37.21],['Berry',37.21],['Tina',37.2],['Akriti',41],['Harsh',39]]
I want to print the name of record which has second lowest score. If two records have same lowest score I need to sort them based on their names and then print. I know we can use
record.sort(key..)
to get values sorted according to score. But how to check for second lowest score and then check for name.
second_lowest = sorted(my_list,key=lambda x:x[::-1])[1]
not sure what you mean about ties and whatnot ... but this should sort first by score and sort ties by alphabetical name, by reversing the items we are sorting records of [score,name]
this basically just abuses the fact that tuples/lists naturally sort on progressive keys when the first key ties
sorted([[1,2,3],[1,2,4],[3,2,1],[1,1,2]])
Like others have said, you can easily get a list sorted on value and name by reversing the sublists.
>>> sorted_data = sorted(record, key=lambda x: x[::-1])
>>> sorted_data
[['Tina', 37.2], ['Berry', 37.21], ['Harry', 37.21], ['Harsh', 39], ['Akriti', 41]]
But it seems that you want all second lowest values. Obviously you cannot just index sorted_data[1] then. I would suggest an approach like this,
>>> from itertools import groupby
>>> [list(sublist) for _, sublist in groupby(sorted_data, lambda x: x[1])][1]
[['Berry', 37.21], ['Harry', 37.21]]
This groups your sorted data on the value to easily allow you to access all [name, value] pairs having the same second smallest value.
second = sorted(record, key=lambda(a,b):(b,a))[1]
If you want to have a more flexible way, like using different order for name and score, you can use cmp. Try this:
cfunc = lambda x,y: cmp(x[0],y[0]) if x[1] == y[1] else cmp(x[1],y[1])
record.sort(cmp=cfunc)
record[1]
Or:
cfunc = lambda x,y: -cmp(x[0],y[0]) if x[1] == y[1] else cmp(x[1],y[1])
Depends on whether you want to sort the name ascending or descending.
The general idea here is you have to define the order explicitly. In this case it's defined by the cfunc. See the document for detail: https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#cmp
lambda x,y: cmp(x[1],y[1]) or cmp(x[0],y[0])?
record[1]if the list is sorted from low to high based on its score