Ram Rachum wrote:

That would work for me, +1. (Though I imagine this idea will be showered with -1 from ebd...)

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 9:19 PM, Markus Unterwaditzer < markus@unterwaditzer.net> wrote:

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Ram Rachum wrote:

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I often want to sort objects by an attribute. It's cumbersome to do this:

sorted(entries, key=lambda entry: entry.datetime_created)

Why not allow this instead:

sorted(entries, key='datetime_created')

The `sorted` function can check whether the `key` argument is a string, and if so do an attribute lookup.

Since I see no other possible use of a string input to `key`, I don't see how this feature would harm anyone.

What do you think?

Thanks, Ram.

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I think it's a very bad idea to try to overload the key argument, imo a separate kwarg of sorted would be fine though. E.g:

sorted(iterable, attribute='someattr')

-- Markus (from phone)

Although i think it's better to use attrgetter, since it is more easily reusable and so on. -- Markus (from phone)