On 20 jul, 19:34, montyphy... at gmail.com wrote: > copy.copy returns a new object: > > >>> copy.copy(a.keys()) > > [1,2,3] > > Then why doesn't copy.copy(a.keys()).sort() work?? It works, but you don't notice it, because you don't save a reference to the new list. Try this: c = copy.copy(a.keys()) c.sort() -- Roberto Bonvallet