Discussion on: How to Sort a List of Dictionaries in Python

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You don't need to use lambda here at all. In fact you would be better off using itemgetter from the operator module in the standard library.

from operator import itemgetter

f = itemgetter('Name')
csv_mapping_list.sort(key=f)

[{'Name': 'Ally', 'Age': 41, 'Favorite Color': 'Magenta'},
 {'Name': 'Jasmine', 'Age': 29, 'Favorite Color': 'Aqua'},
 {'Name': 'Jeremy', 'Age': 25, 'Favorite Color': 'Blue'}]

Jeremy Grifski • Mar 28 '19 • Edited

Define "better off." Using itemgetter is definitely another way to do it, but it's almost exactly the same as the lambda option. Likewise, I could have also written a function of my own to pass as the key.

Of course, I'm happy to add itemgetter as another option if you want.

EDIT: I added your example to the article.

dmitrypolo • Mar 28 '19

itemgetter is faster than using lambda specifically because all the operations are performed on the C side. I should have clarified when I made my response. Thanks for the shoutout!

Jeremy Grifski • Mar 28 '19 • Edited

Thanks for the clarification! I wasn't aware of that. The article has been updated to include a note about performance.