Sort list of tuples by specific tuple element in Python 3

Question

I have a list of tuples:

tple_list = [('4', '4', '1', 'Bart', 'Simpson'), 
('1', '2', '6', 'Lisa', 'Simpson'), 
('6', '3', '4', 'Homer', 'Simpson'), 
('2', '3', '1', 'Hermione', 'Nobody'), 
('1', '2', '3', 'Bristol', 'Palace')]

I want to sort them all by their last name's. If the last names of two student's are the same, then I'd like to search by the first name. How?

Thanks.

========================

So, I've got this so far:

tple_list.sort(key=operator.itemgetter(4), reverse=False)

This takes the list and sorts it by last name. I have people with the same last name though, so how do I sort by their first name if their last name is the same?

Answer 1

Use itemgetter from Python's operator module to sort using multiple indices in any order.

from operator import itemgetter

tple_list = [('4', '4', '1', 'Bart', 'Simpson'), 
('1', '2', '6', 'Lisa', 'Simpson'), 
('6', '3', '4', 'Homer', 'Simpson'), 
('2', '3', '1', 'Hermione', 'Nobody'), 
('1', '2', '3', 'Bristol', 'Palace')]

tple_list.sort(key=itemgetter(4, 3)) # lastname, firstname
print(tple_list)

output

[('2', '3', '1', 'Hermione', 'Nobody'),
 ('1', '2', '3', 'Bristol', 'Palace'),
('4', '4', '1', 'Bart', 'Simpson'),
('6', '3', '4', 'Homer', 'Simpson'),
('1', '2', '6', 'Lisa', 'Simpson')]