How do I sort a dictionary by value?

Python 3.7+ or CPython 3.6

Dicts preserve insertion order in Python 3.7+. Same in CPython 3.6, but it's an implementation detail.

>>> x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
>>> {k: v for k, v in sorted(x.items(), key=lambda item: item[1])}
{0: 0, 2: 1, 1: 2, 4: 3, 3: 4}

or

>>> dict(sorted(x.items(), key=lambda item: item[1]))
{0: 0, 2: 1, 1: 2, 4: 3, 3: 4}

Older Python

It is not possible to sort a dictionary, only to get a representation of a dictionary that is sorted. Dictionaries are inherently orderless, but other types, such as lists and tuples, are not. So you need an ordered data type to represent sorted values, which will be a list—probably a list of tuples.

For instance,

import operator
x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
sorted_x = sorted(x.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1))

sorted_x will be a list of tuples sorted by the second element in each tuple. dict(sorted_x) == x.

And for those wishing to sort on keys instead of values:

import operator
x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
sorted_x = sorted(x.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(0))

In Python3 since unpacking is not allowed we can use

x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
sorted_x = sorted(x.items(), key=lambda kv: kv[1])

If you want the output as a dict, you can use collections.OrderedDict:

import collections

sorted_dict = collections.OrderedDict(sorted_x)

You could use:

sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])

This will sort the dictionary by the values of each entry within the dictionary from smallest to largest.

To sort it in descending order just add reverse=True:

sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True)

Input:

d = {'one':1,'three':3,'five':5,'two':2,'four':4}
a = sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])    
print(a)

Output:

[('one', 1), ('two', 2), ('three', 3), ('four', 4), ('five', 5)]

Dicts can't be sorted, but you can build a sorted list from them.

A sorted list of dict values:

sorted(d.values())

A list of (key, value) pairs, sorted by value:

from operator import itemgetter
sorted(d.items(), key=itemgetter(1))

Pretty much the same as Hank Gay's answer:

sorted([(value,key) for (key,value) in mydict.items()])

Or optimized slightly as suggested by John Fouhy:

sorted((value,key) for (key,value) in mydict.items())

Starting from Python 3.6, dict objects are now ordered by insertion order. It's officially in the specs of Python 3.7.

>>> words = {"python": 2, "blah": 4, "alice": 3}
>>> dict(sorted(words.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]))
{'python': 2, 'alice': 3, 'blah': 4}

Before that, you had to use OrderedDict.

Python 3.7 documentation says:

Changed in version 3.7: Dictionary order is guaranteed to be insertion order. This behavior was implementation detail of CPython from 3.6.

You can create an "inverted index", also

from collections import defaultdict
inverse= defaultdict( list )
for k, v in originalDict.items():
    inverse[v].append( k )

Now your inverse has the values; each value has a list of applicable keys.

for k in sorted(inverse):
    print k, inverse[k]

Just learned relevant skill from Python for Everybody.

You may use a temporary list to help you to sort the dictionary:

#Assume dictionary to be:
d = {'apple': 500.1, 'banana': 1500.2, 'orange': 1.0, 'pineapple': 789.0}

# create a temporary list
tmp = []

# iterate through the dictionary and append each tuple into the temporary list 
for key, value in d.items():
    tmptuple = (value, key)
    tmp.append(tmptuple)

# sort the list in ascending order
tmp = sorted(tmp)

print (tmp)

If you want to sort the list in descending order, simply change the original sorting line to:

tmp = sorted(tmp, reverse=True)

Using list comprehension, the one liner would be:

#Assuming the dictionary looks like
d = {'apple': 500.1, 'banana': 1500.2, 'orange': 1.0, 'pineapple': 789.0}
#One liner for sorting in ascending order
print (sorted([(v, k) for k, v in d.items()]))
#One liner for sorting in descending order
print (sorted([(v, k) for k, v in d.items()], reverse=True))

Sample Output:

#Asending order
[(1.0, 'orange'), (500.1, 'apple'), (789.0, 'pineapple'), (1500.2, 'banana')]
#Descending order
[(1500.2, 'banana'), (789.0, 'pineapple'), (500.1, 'apple'), (1.0, 'orange')]

Beside using builtin module etc, i try solve it manually..... first i made a function whose job is to returning minimal value each items of the dict :

def returnminDict(_dct):
    dict_items = _dct.items()
    list_items = list(dict_items)
    init_items = list_items[0]
    for i in range(len(list_items)):
        if list_items[i][1] > init_items[1]:
           continue
        else:
           init_items = list_items[i]
    return init_items

Second, now we have a function which return item that has minimal value, then i make a new dict then loop over the dict :

def SelectDictSort(_dct):
    new_dict = {}
    while _dct:
        mindict = returnminDict(_dct)
        new_dict.update(dict((mindict,)))
        _dct.pop(mindict[0])
    return new_dict

i try this SelectDictSort({2: 5, 5: 1, 4: 3, 1: 1, 0: 1, 9: 2, 8: 2}) will return :

{0: 1, 1: 1, 5: 1, 8: 2, 9: 2, 4: 3, 2: 5}

Hmmm... i dont know which is correct but this what i have tried....

(updated code from retrun new_dct to return new_dict)