Python sorted() Function

The Python sorted() function is used to sort elements of an iterable in ascending or descending order. In this function, a function can be passed as optional parameter to specify sorting criteria.

Syntax

sorted(iterable, reverse = True | False, key = function)

Parameters

`iterable`	`Required.` iterable object like list, tuple, set, string , dictionary and range() etc.
`reverse`	`Optional.` takes either 'True' or 'False' values. Default value is False. True is used for descending order sorting and False is used for ascending order sorting.
`key`	`Optional.` A function which specify sorting criteria.

Example: Reverse order Sorting

In the example below, sorted() function is used to sort elements of a list in reverse order.

MyList = [1, 10, 5, 7, 3, 6, 5]
x = sorted(MyList, reverse = True)  
print(x)

The output of the above code will be:

[10, 7, 6, 5, 5, 3, 1]

Example: Reverse order Sorting with function criteria

This example describes how to use sorted() function to sort elements of a list in reverse order based on the length of the element.

def name_length(x):
  return len(x)

MyList = ['Marry', 'Sam', 'John', 'Jo']
# sort 'MyList' list based on name_length() function
x = sorted(MyList, reverse = True, key = name_length)  
print(x)

The output of the above code will be:

['Marry', 'John', 'Sam', 'Jo']

❮ Python Built-in Functions