How to Sort a List of Lists by a Specific Inner List Element in Python?

Sorting a List of Lists by a Specific Inner List Element

To sort a list of lists based on a specific index within each inner list, Python provides several approaches. One commonly used method involves utilizing the operator module's itemgetter() function.

Solution Using itemgetter():

The itemgetter() function from the operator module allows you to selectively extract a specific element from a list or tuple. By passing the itemgetter() function as an argument to the sorted() function, you can sort the outer list according to the desired inner element:

from operator import itemgetter

L = [[0, 1, 'f'], [4, 2, 't'], [9, 4, 'afsd']]
sorted(L, key=itemgetter(2))

This code snippet will sort the list L based on the string elements at the second index of each inner list. The resulting sorted list will be:

[[9, 4, 'afsd'], [0, 1, 'f'], [4, 2, 't']]

Alternative Solution Using a Lambda Function:

Alternatively, you can utilize a lambda function to achieve the same sorting behavior:

sorted(L, key=lambda x: x[2])

However, in this simple case, using a lambda function is slightly slower compared to itemgetter().

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