Sorting Dictionary With Alphanumeric Keys In Natural Order

I have a python dictionary: d = {'a1': 123, 'a2': 2, 'a10': 333, 'a11': 4456} When I sort the dictionary using OrderedDict I get the following output: from collections import Orde

Solution 1:

You're in luck: The natsort module can help. First, install it using:

pip install natsort

Now, you can pass d.keys() to natsort.natsorted, and build a new OrderedDict.

import natsort
from collections importOrderedDictd= {'a1' : 123, 
     'a2' : 2, 
     'a10': 333, 
     'a11': 4456}
keys = natsort.natsorted(d.keys())    
d_new = OrderedDict((k, d[k]) for k in keys)

A shorter version involves sorting d.items() (got this idea from RomanPerekhrest's answer):

d_new = OrderedDict(natsort.natsorted(d.items()))

---

d_new
OrderedDict([('a1', 123), ('a2', 2), ('a10', 333), ('a11', 4456)])

Solution 2:

Short "trick" with chr() function on character code (no external packages):

import collections

d = {'a1': 123, 'a2': 2, 'a10': 333, 'a11': 4456}
result = collections.OrderedDict(sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: chr(int(x[0][1:]))))
print(result)

The output:

OrderedDict([('a1', 123), ('a2', 2), ('a10', 333), ('a11', 4456)])