Sorting and Grouping Nested Lists in Python

Question

I have the following data structure (a list of lists)

[
 [\'4\', \'21\', \'1\', \'14\', \'2008-10-24 15:42:58\'], 
 [\'3\', \'22\', \'4\', \'2somename\', \'2         


        

Answer 1

You're simply creating indexes on your structure, right?

>>> from collections import defaultdict
>>> def indexOn( things, pos ):
...     inx= defaultdict(list)
...     for t in things:
...             inx[t[pos]].append(t)
...     return inx
... 
>>> a=[
...  ['4', '21', '1', '14', '2008-10-24 15:42:58'], 
...  ['3', '22', '4', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:22:03'], 
...  ['5', '21', '3', '19', '2008-10-24 15:45:45'], 
...  ['6', '21', '1', '1somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:49'], 
...  ['7', '22', '3', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:51']
... ]

Here's your first request, grouped by position 1.

>>> import pprint
>>> pprint.pprint( dict(indexOn(a,1)) )
{'21': [['4', '21', '1', '14', '2008-10-24 15:42:58'],
        ['5', '21', '3', '19', '2008-10-24 15:45:45'],
        ['6', '21', '1', '1somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:49']],
 '22': [['3', '22', '4', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:22:03'],
        ['7', '22', '3', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:51']]}

Here's your second request, grouped by position 3.

>>> dict(indexOn(a,3))
{'19': [['5', '21', '3', '19', '2008-10-24 15:45:45']], '14': [['4', '21', '1', '14', '2008-10-24 15:42:58']], '2somename': [['3', '22', '4', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:22:03'], ['7', '22', '3', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:51']], '1somename': [['6', '21', '1', '1somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:49']]}
>>> pprint.pprint(_)
{'14': [['4', '21', '1', '14', '2008-10-24 15:42:58']],
 '19': [['5', '21', '3', '19', '2008-10-24 15:45:45']],
 '1somename': [['6', '21', '1', '1somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:49']],
 '2somename': [['3', '22', '4', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:22:03'],
               ['7', '22', '3', '2somename', '2008-10-24 15:45:51']]}