Readably print out a python dict() sorted by key

Actually pprint seems to sort the keys for you under python2.5

>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> mydict = {'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3}
>>> pprint(mydict)
{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
>>> mydict = {'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3, 'd':4, 'e':5}
>>> pprint(mydict)
{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'd': 4, 'e': 5}
>>> d = dict(zip("kjihgfedcba",range(11)))
>>> pprint(d)
{'a': 10,
 'b': 9,
 'c': 8,
 'd': 7,
 'e': 6,
 'f': 5,
 'g': 4,
 'h': 3,
 'i': 2,
 'j': 1,
 'k': 0}

But not always under python 2.4

>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> mydict = {'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3, 'd':4, 'e':5}
>>> pprint(mydict)
{'a': 1, 'c': 3, 'b': 2, 'e': 5, 'd': 4}
>>> d = dict(zip("kjihgfedcba",range(11)))
>>> pprint(d)
{'a': 10,
 'b': 9,
 'c': 8,
 'd': 7,
 'e': 6,
 'f': 5,
 'g': 4,
 'h': 3,
 'i': 2,
 'j': 1,
 'k': 0}
>>> 

Reading the source code of pprint.py (2.5) it does sort the dictionary using

items = object.items()
items.sort()

for multiline or this for single line

for k, v in sorted(object.items()):

before it attempts to print anything, so if your dictionary sorts properly like that then it should pprint properly. In 2.4 the second sorted() is missing (didn’t exist then) so objects printed on a single line won’t be sorted.

So the answer appears to be use python2.5, though this doesn’t quite explain your output in the question.

Python3 Update

Pretty print by sorted keys (lambda x: x[0]):

for key, value in sorted(dict_example.items(), key=lambda x: x[0]): 
    print("{} : {}".format(key, value))

Pretty print by sorted values (lambda x: x[1]):

for key, value in sorted(dict_example.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]): 
    print("{} : {}".format(key, value))