Python Sort a List containing sets

Question

Any idea how to sort a list that contains elements of type set ? This is the code I'm using:

 sorted_by_second = sorted(result_list, key=lambda set: set[1])

Example of how my result_list looks like:

[['past due', '32.86691794423967'], ['code', '23.24240338748313'], ['why:customer','27.65754595407057']]

I would like to sort the list by descending order according to the 2nd element in each tupple of the list elements. The sorted list result should look like

 [['past due', '32.86691794423967'], ['why:customer','27.65754595407057'], ['code', '23.24240338748313']]

Answer 1

I suggest to use float to map the second element from a string to a number. This will allow sorted to sort by numbers. If you don't use float , sorted will sort the second element as strings.

sorted(result_list, key=lambda x: float(x[1]), reverse=True)

Result:

[['past due', '32.86691794423967'],
 ['why:customer', '27.65754595407057'],
 ['code', '23.24240338748313']]

Hint: Don't use set as a name since it is a built-in function .

Answer 2

sortedlst contain the descending sorted elements by second element

lst=[['past due', '32.86691794423967'], ['code', '23.24240338748313'], ['why:customer','27.436']]

sortedlst=sorted(lst,key=lambda x: x[1],reverse=True)
print sortedlst