How do I sort a list of dictionaries this way?

May 16, 2022

Suppose You have a list of dictionaries like the below.

data = [
    
    {
        'id':1,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'WA'
    },
    {
        'id':2,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'QLD'
    },
    {
        'id':3,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'WA'
    },
    {
        'id':4,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'QLD'
    },
    {
        'id':5,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'WA'
    }
]

I want all the dictionaries where state == QLD to come before others (i.e. which state is given has to come first.
so the result will be:



data = [
    {
        'id':2,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'QLD'
    },
    {
        'id':4,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'QLD'
    },
    {
        'id':1,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'WA'
    },
    
    {
        'id':3,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'WA'
    },
    
    {
        'id':5,
        'name':'ABC corporation',
        'state': 'WA'
    }
]

Note: Not just normal sorting. I want to sort according to the state, only if the state value is matched. My concern is that the given state dictionary data will be before other state’s data.

>Solution :

Try this, it returns "" on "QLD", which should always be the "first" string when sorting:

def my_sort(x):
    if x["state"] == "QLD":
        return ""
    else:
        return x["state"]

sorted_data = list(sorted(data, key=my_sort))
print(sorted_data)