How to sort a list of strings alphabetically in Python?

May 13, 2023

I have a list of strings in Python that I want to sort alphabetically. I’ve tried using the sorted() function, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Here’s an example of what I’ve tried:

my_list = ['banana', 'apple', 'orange']
sorted_list = sorted(my_list)
print(sorted_list)

But the output I get is still the same as the original list:

['banana', 'apple', 'orange']

What am I doing wrong? How can I sort my list of strings alphabetically?

>Solution :

Code1:

  my_list = ['banana', 'apple', 'orange']
  my_list.sort()
  print(my_list)
  my_list = ['banana', 'apple', 'orange']
  my_list.sort()

Code 1 will give you output like [apple, banana, orange]
as .sort() simply sorts by first character of string

Code 2:

 my_list = ['banana', 'apple', 'orange']
 my_list.sort()
 newSortedList=[]
 for i in my_list:
     s="".join(sorted(i))
     newSortedList.append(s)
 print(newSortedList)

Code 2 will give output like [‘aelpp’, ‘aaabnn’, ‘aegnor’]
in code first i have sorted the list using .sort() which changes the my_list to:

[apple, banana, orange]

After which i have individually sorted each string in list with sorted function which returns list of sorted character which will look like:

[‘a’, ‘e’, ‘l’, ‘p’, ‘p’]

then using "".join() i have joined the list and final output is a string:

"aelpp"

which i have appended to newSortedList

The above is done for each string in List.

Hope this was helpful.