In Python, how do I iterate over a dictionary in sorted key order?

Question

There\'s an existing function that ends in the following, where d is a dictionary:

return d.iteritems()

that returns an unsort

Answer 1

sorted returns a list, hence your error when you try to iterate over it, but because you can't order a dict you will have to deal with a list.

I have no idea what the larger context of your code is, but you could try adding an iterator to the resulting list. like this maybe?:

return iter(sorted(dict.iteritems()))

of course you will be getting back tuples now because sorted turned your dict into a list of tuples

ex: say your dict was: {'a':1,'c':3,'b':2} sorted turns it into a list:

[('a',1),('b',2),('c',3)]

so when you actually iterate over the list you get back (in this example) a tuple composed of a string and an integer, but at least you will be able to iterate over it.