Finding and grouping anagrams by Python

Question

input: [\'abc\', \'cab\', \'cafe\', \'face\', \'goo\']
output: [[\'abc\', \'cab\'], [\'cafe\', \'face\'], [\'goo\']]

The problem is simple: it grou

Answer 1

from itertools import groupby

words = ['oog', 'abc', 'cab', 'cafe', 'face', 'goo', 'foo']

print [list(g) for k, g in groupby(sorted(words, key=sorted), sorted)]

Result:

[['abc', 'cab'], ['cafe', 'face'], ['foo'], ['oog', 'goo']]

You can't just use the groupby function, as that only groups together sequential elements for which your key function produces the same result.

The easy solution is just to sort the words first using the same function as you use for grouping.