The order of the keys in a list of dictionaries

Question

#!/usr/bin/python
# 1.15. Grouping Records Together Based on a Field
# Problem: You have a sequence of dictionaries or instances and you want to iterate over the data
# in groups based on the value of a particular field, such as date.

from operator import itemgetter
from itertools import groupby

# To iterate over the data in chunks grouped by date. 
# First, sort by the desired field (in this case, date) and 
# then use itertools.groupby():

rows = [
    {'address': '5412 N CLARK', 'date': '07/01/2012'},
    {'address': '5148 N CLARK', 'date': '07/04/2012'},
    {'address': '5800 E 58TH', 'date': '07/02/2012'},
    {'address': '2122 N CLARK', 'date': '07/03/2012'},
    {'address': '5645 N RAVENSWOOD', 'date': '07/02/2012'},
    {'address': '1060 W ADDISON', 'date': '07/02/2012'},
    {'address': '4801 N BROADWAY', 'date': '07/01/2012'},
    {'address': '1039 W GRANVILLE', 'date': '07/04/2012'},
]

# Sort by the desired field first
rows.sort(key=itemgetter('date'))
print (rows)


for date, items in groupby(rows, key=itemgetter('date')):
    print(date)
    for i in items:
        print(' ', i)

The output of the above code is like:

[{'date': '07/01/2012', 'address': '5412 N CLARK'}, {'date': '07/01/2012', 'address': '4801 N BROADWAY'}, {'date': '07/02/2012', 'address': '5800 E 58TH'}, {'date': '07/02/2012', 'address': '5645 N RAVENSWOOD'}, {'date': '07/02/2012', 'address': '1060 W ADDISON'}, {'date': '07/03/2012', 'address': '2122 N CLARK'}, {'date': '07/04/2012', 'address': '5148 N CLARK'}, {'date': '07/04/2012', 'address': '1039 W GRANVILLE'}]
07/01/2012
     {'date': '07/01/2012', 'address': '5412 N CLARK'}
     {'date': '07/01/2012', 'address': '4801 N BROADWAY'}
07/02/2012
     {'date': '07/02/2012', 'address': '5800 E 58TH'}
     {'date': '07/02/2012', 'address': '5645 N RAVENSWOOD'}
     {'date': '07/02/2012', 'address': '1060 W ADDISON'}
07/03/2012
     {'date': '07/03/2012', 'address': '2122 N CLARK'}
07/04/2012
     {'date': '07/04/2012', 'address': '5148 N CLARK'}
     {'date': '07/04/2012', 'address': '1039 W GRANVILLE'}

The "date" is in front of the "address". However, if I change the code by just adding print (rows) at line 24 as following :

#!/usr/bin/python
# 1.15. Grouping Records Together Based on a Field
# Problem: You have a sequence of dictionaries or instances and you want to iterate over the data
# in groups based on the value of a particular field, such as date.

from operator import itemgetter
from itertools import groupby

# To iterate over the data in chunks grouped by date. 
# First, sort by the desired field (in this case, date) and 
# then use itertools.groupby():

rows = [
    {'address': '5412 N CLARK', 'date': '07/01/2012'},
    {'address': '5148 N CLARK', 'date': '07/04/2012'},
    {'address': '5800 E 58TH', 'date': '07/02/2012'},
    {'address': '2122 N CLARK', 'date': '07/03/2012'},
    {'address': '5645 N RAVENSWOOD', 'date': '07/02/2012'},
    {'address': '1060 W ADDISON', 'date': '07/02/2012'},
    {'address': '4801 N BROADWAY', 'date': '07/01/2012'},
    {'address': '1039 W GRANVILLE', 'date': '07/04/2012'},
]

print (rows)
# Sort by the desired field first
rows.sort(key=itemgetter('date'))
print (rows)


for date, items in groupby(rows, key=itemgetter('date')):
    print(date)
    for i in items:
        print(' ', i)

The output of the above code is like:

[{'address': '5412 N CLARK', 'date': '07/01/2012'}, {'address': '4801 N BROADWAY', 'date': '07/01/2012'}, {'address': '5800 E 58TH', 'date': '07/02/2012'}, {'address': '5645 N RAVENSWOOD', 'date': '07/02/2012'}, {'address': '1060 W ADDISON', 'date': '07/02/2012'}, {'address': '2122 N CLARK', 'date': '07/03/2012'}, {'address': '5148 N CLARK', 'date': '07/04/2012'}, {'address': '1039 W GRANVILLE', 'date': '07/04/2012'}]
07/01/2012
     {'address': '5412 N CLARK', 'date': '07/01/2012'}
     {'address': '4801 N BROADWAY', 'date': '07/01/2012'}
07/02/2012
     {'address': '5800 E 58TH', 'date': '07/02/2012'}
     {'address': '5645 N RAVENSWOOD', 'date': '07/02/2012'}
     {'address': '1060 W ADDISON', 'date': '07/02/2012'}
07/03/2012
     {'address': '2122 N CLARK', 'date': '07/03/2012'}
07/04/2012
     {'address': '5148 N CLARK', 'date': '07/04/2012'}
     {'address': '1039 W GRANVILLE', 'date': '07/04/2012'}

The "address" is in front of the "date".

Why the order of the keys will change?

Answer 1

The order varies not because you've added a line of code, but because of hash randomization . Implementing hash randomization mitigates DoS attacks using broken sequences of tens of thousands of values that hash to the same value in eg a HTTP POST request.

Answer 2

If you want the order to remain constant, you need to used an OrderedDict from collections .

from collections import OrderedDict

row = OrderedDict([('address', '5412 N CLARK'), ('date', '07/01/2012')])

>>> row
OrderedDict([('address', '5412 N CLARK'), ('date', '07/01/2012')])

>>> rows.keys()
['address', 'date']