how to sort multiple columns in excel using python

HOW TO SORT MULTIPLE COLUMNS IN EXCEL USING PYTHON HOW TO
HOW TO SORT MULTIPLE COLUMNS IN EXCEL USING PYTHON CODE

If you want to keep the state of the original list and want to return a new 2-dimensional list then you’ll want to use the sorted function. To achieve this, we would drop the reverse parameter and operate on the values set in our lambda functions tuples, like so: data = ,ĭata.sort(key=lambda row: (-row, row))īesides removing the reverse parameter, have a look at the first tuple entry in our lambda function: -row notice how there is a negative sign in front of the row value.īy removing the reverse parameter it will sort all values in ascending order by default, and by placing a negative on the numeric values contained in my third column it puts the larger negative numbers on top.Ĭreate A Custom Sort Order For Your Excel PIVOT TABLE Sorted Function For example, what if I wanted the third column to be in descending order, but I wanted the fourth column to be in ascending order? What if I wanted different sorting methods on different columns. And this was relatively easy considering that both of my requirements had the same sort method, but what if they didn’t? Different Sort Order For Different Columns? The third note is the parameter reverse which sets the descending order. Therefore, this tuple contains references to those columns only and inserts their values into the tuple. Then I wanted to sort the fourth column, which has an index of 3. In this example, I wanted to place the primary sort on the third column, which has an index of 2 in Python lists. Then we create a tuple containing what we want to sort. Each element is a row of my two-dimensional list, which is labelled as the parameter row for the lambda function. This parameter accepts a function, which I used as a lambda function, and iterates through each element in the list. The second thing to notice is the key parameter. Therefore, if the original state of the list before operation is important, then you want to avoid using this method on your list (see below for a non-mutating function). Notice several things here: first, the original data variable’s state has changed, this is the principle of mutation at work.īy using this method, it will modify the original state of the variable operated on. If we apply this to our example above, here’s how this would look: data = ,ĭata.sort(key=lambda row: (row, row), reverse=True)

HOW TO SORT MULTIPLE COLUMNS IN EXCEL USING PYTHON HOW TO

The sort() list method takes two parameters: key and reverse which enables you to set what to sort and how to sort. One way to sort a two-dimensional list in Python is by using the sort() list method.

HOW TO SORT MULTIPLE COLUMNS IN EXCEL USING PYTHON CODE

Using my code example above, here’s how both types work: Sort List Method Set the key parameter for both types using a lambda function and return a tuple of the columns to sort according to the required sort order. To sort a two-dimensional list in Python use the sort() list method, which mutates the list, or the sorted() function, which does not. Then I wanted to sort the data by the third column second in descending order, placing the invoices with the highest amount overdue higher with invoices overdue on the same day. The requirement I had with this data was to sort the list by the third column first in descending order, thereby placing at the top of the new sorted list the most overdue invoices.

This same tabular data would be represented in a Python 2D list as follows: data = , I recently had a project where I had the following two-dimensional data set, which was represented in the following way: Customer ID How do you sort a two-dimensional list in Python easily without importing libraries? Thankfully, there are some native functions in Python which make sorting lists a breeze.

How to sort multiple columns in excel using python