sort a list of files

[Gary Wessle]

Hi

I am trying to print out the contents of a directory, sorted.

**************** the code ****************
1 import os, sys
2
3 if len(sys.argv) < 2:
4 sys.exit("please enter a suitable directory.")
5
6 print os.listdir(sys.argv[1]).sort()
************************************************** **************

if I remove ".sort()" at the end of line 6 I get an unsorted list of
files, if I leave it I get None. who do I fix this?

thank you

[Ryan Forsythe]

Gary Wessle wrote:

Hi

I am trying to print out the contents of a directory, sorted. .... if I remove ".sort()" at the end of line 6 I get an unsorted list of
files, if I leave it I get None. who do I fix this?

`blah.sort()` sorts in-place and returns None. You probably want
sorted(blah):

a = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9]
sorted(a) [1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9] a [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9] a.sort()
a

[1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9]

--
Ryan Forsythe

[Scott David Daniels]

Ryan Forsythe wrote:

Gary Wessle wrote:

Hi

I am trying to print out the contents of a directory, sorted.

...

if I remove ".sort()" at the end of line 6 I get an unsorted list of
files, if I leave it I get None. who do I fix this?

`blah.sort()` sorts in-place and returns None. You probably want
sorted(blah):

>>> a = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9]
>>> sorted(a) [1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9] >>> a [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9] >>> a.sort()
>>> a

[1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9]

If you are using an old version of Python (2.3.X or before),
the you just need to break your statement up:
Instead of:
6 print os.listdir(sys.argv[1]).sort()
use:
6 files = os.listdir(sys.argv[1])
7 files.sort()
8 print files

--Scott David Daniels
sc***********@acm.org