Python 2.5 dictionary 2 key sort

Question

I have a dictionary of 200,000 items (the keys are strings and the values are integers).

What is the best/most pythonic way to print the items sorted by descending v

Answer 1

Building on Thomas Wouters and Ricardo Reyes solutions:

def combine(*cmps):
    """Sequence comparisons."""
    def comparator(a, b):
        for cmp in cmps:
            result = cmp(a, b):
            if result:
                return result
        return 0
    return comparator

def reverse(cmp):
    """Invert a comparison."""
    def comparator(a, b):
        return cmp(b, a)
    return comparator

def compare_nth(cmp, n):
    """Compare the n'th item from two sequences."""
    def comparator(a, b):
        return cmp(a[n], b[n])
    return comparator

rev_val_key_cmp = combine(
        # compare values, decreasing
        reverse(compare_nth(1, cmp)),

        # compare keys, increasing
        compare_nth(0, cmp)
    )

data = { 'keyC':1, 'keyB':2, 'keyA':1 }

for key, value in sorted(data.items(), cmp=rev_val_key_cmp):
    print key, value