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It takes me over half an hour to learn how it works. (I hope to save your time)

You have to remember to add compare function to your sort/sorted command.

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# -*- coding:iso8859-1 -*-
import locale

# using your default locale (user settings)
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,"")
#locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,"fi") or something else

stuff="aåbäcÖöAÄÅBCabcÅÄÖabcÅÄÖ"

# using sorted-function
print "Wrong order:"
print "".join(sorted(stuff))  # not using locale

print "Right order:"
print "".join(sorted(stuff,cmp=locale.strcoll)) # using locale


# in place sorting
stufflist=list(stuff)

print "Wrong order:"
stufflist.sort()  # not using locale
print "".join(stufflist)  

print "Right order:"
stufflist.sort(cmp=locale.strcoll) # using locale
print "".join(stufflist) 

This is quite simple recipe following exactly python's locale manual. See: http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-locale.html

2 comments

Raymond Hettinger 18 years, 5 months ago  # | flag

Faster to use key=locale.strxfrm than cmp=locale.strcoll.

print "Right order:"
stufflist.sort(key=locale.strxfrm) # using locale
print "".join(stufflist)
Chris Arndt 18 years, 4 months ago  # | flag

Compability. Beware:

  • The built-in function 'sorted()' is only available from Python 2.4.

  • Support for the keyword argument 'key' to the 'sort()' method of lists was only added in Python 2.4 as well.

Created by Eino Mäkitalo on Sat, 29 Oct 2005 (PSF)
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