Question

I want to sort a string to a list in lexicographic order as

str='aAaBbcCdE'

to

['A','a','a','B','b','C','c','d','E']

but sorted() gives me this output:

['A','B','C','E','a','a','b','c','d']

How can I sort lexicographically?

Answer 1

Do not use lambda functions when there’s builtin ones for the job. Also never use the cmp argument of sorted because it’s deprecated:

sorted(s, key=str.lower)

or

sorted(s, key=str.upper)

But that may not keep ‘A’ and ‘a’ in order, so:

sorted(sorted(s), key=str.upper)

that will and, by the nature of sorted the operation will be very fast for almost sorted lists (the second sorted).