Sort list according to values in nested dict

Question

I have a nested dict, I want get a sorted list (AZ) of the base keys according to one of the nested values, name .

my_dict: {
    'RED':{'name':'Pen', 'number':5},
    'YEL':{'name':'Dog', 'number':1},
    'BLU':{'name':'Ball', 'number':3}
}

The correct output for the example would be:

my_list = ['BLU', 'YEL', 'RED']

At the moment, I have an ugly solution, it relies on the code always being 3 chars long.

my_list = []
for code in my_dict:
    my_list.append(my_dict[code]['name'] + code)
my_list = sorted(my_list)
my_list = [x[-3:] for x in my_list]

Answer 1

You can use the key argument of the sorted function:

my_dict = {
    'RED':{'name':'Pen', 'number':5},
    'YEL':{'name':'Dog', 'number':1},
    'BLU':{'name':'Ball', 'number':3}
}

my_list = sorted(my_dict, key = lambda x: my_dict[x]['name'])

print(my_list)

Output:

['BLU', 'YEL', 'RED']