Print a dictionary based on an ordered list

Question

I have sorted a dictionary based on a value within that dictionary. Now, I want to print ordered, relevant aspects of the dictionary, using the sorted list of keys.

Here's what I tried so far:

sc = sorted(stats,key=lambda x:(stats[x]['avg length'],x)) #to get a sorted list of keys

for sc in stats:
    print "Name %s, Number: %s, Average length: %s, Max length: %s, Min length: %s" % (sc, stats[sc]["number"],stats[sc]["avg length"], stats[sc]["max length"], stats[sc]["min length"])

However, the order of the output does not match the order of my list sc. In fact, I cannot see any pattern with how the values outputted..

Sorry if this is a trivial question--I'm new to python :(

Answer 1

Your for loop is a little backwards. You want to iterate over your ordered keys, not your original dictionary:

for key in sc:
    print ... % (key, stats[key], ...

Answer 2

At a guess, you probably meant to write something like:

for s in sc:
    print "Name %s, Number: %s, Average length: %s, Max length: %s, Min length: %s" % (s, stats[s]["number"],stats[s]["avg length"], stats[s]["max length"], stats[s]["min length"])

You're replacing the sorted list in the existing for loop assignment.