sort one list using the values from another list

[Jeffrey Schwab]

Brian Blais wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have two lists, one with strings (filenames, actually), and one with a 
> real-number
> rank, like:
> 
> A=['hello','there','this','that']
> B=[3,4,2,5]
> 
> I'd like to sort list A using the values from B, so the result would be 
> in this example,
> 
> A=['this','hello','there','that']
> 
> The sort method on lists does in-place sorting.  Is there a way to do 
> what I want here?

If A has no duplicate elements, you could create a hash mapping A's 
elements to their respective precedences, then provide a sort criterion 
that accessed the hash.  Alternatively, you could do something like this:

from operator import itemgetter
result = map(itemgetter(0), sorted(zip(A, B), key=itemgetter(1)))