How to sort multidimensional array by column?

Question

Is there a way to use the sort() method or any other method to sort a list by column? Lets say I have the list:

[
[John,2],
[Jim,9],
[Jason,1]
]

Answer 1

The optional key parameter to sort/sorted is a function. The function is called for each item and the return values determine the ordering of the sort

>>> lst = [['John', 2], ['Jim', 9], ['Jason', 1]]
>>> def my_key_func(item):
...     print("The key for {} is {}".format(item, item[1]))
...     return item[1]
... 
>>> sorted(lst, key=my_key_func)
The key for ['John', 2] is 2
The key for ['Jim', 9] is 9
The key for ['Jason', 1] is 1
[['Jason', 1], ['John', 2], ['Jim', 9]]

taking the print out of the function leaves

>>> def my_key_func(item):
...     return item[1]

This function is simple enough to write "inline" as a lambda function

>>> sorted(lst, key=lambda item: item[1])
[['Jason', 1], ['John', 2], ['Jim', 9]]