python - How to custom-sort a list of dict to use in json.dumps

Question

I have a list similar to

allsites = [
    {
        'A5': 'G', 
        'A10': 'G', 
        'site': 'example1.com', 
        'A1': 'G'
    }, 
    {
        'A5': 'R', 
        'A10': 'Y',
        'site': 'example2.com', 
        'A1': 'G'
    }
]

Which I use in a json.dumps:

data = { 'Author':"joe", 'data':allsites }
print json.dumps(data,sort_keys=True,indent=4, separators=(',', ': '))

This outputs the following JSON:

{
    "Author": "joe",
    "data": [
        {
            "A1": "G",
            "A10": "G",
            "A5": "G",
            "site": "example1.com"
        },
        {
            "A1": "G",
    (...)

I would like the "data" section of this JSON string to be sorted via a custom key ("alphabet"), in the case above this would be site, A1, A5, A10 and actually look like:

{
    "Author": "joe",
    "data": [
        {
            "site": "example1.com",
            "A1": "G",
            "A5": "G",
            "A10": "G"
        },
        {
            "site": "example2.com",
            "A1": "G",
    (...)

I read about custom sorting in the Sorting FAQ but it just gives a way to override the comparison function, not to mention that I do not know how to insert this into my code.

How to do that?

Answer 1

Since python dicts are unordered collections, use collections.OrderedDict with a custom sort:

from collections import OrderedDict
import json

allsites = [
    {
        'A5': 'G',
        'A10': 'G',
        'site': 'example1.com',
        'A1': 'G'
    },
    {
        'A5': 'R',
        'A10': 'Y',
        'site': 'example2.com',
        'A1': 'G'
    }
]

sort_order = ['site', 'A1', 'A5', 'A10']
allsites_ordered = [OrderedDict(sorted(item.iteritems(), key=lambda (k, v): sort_order.index(k)))
                    for item in allsites]

data = {'Author': "joe", 'data': allsites_ordered}
print json.dumps(data, indent=4, separators=(',', ': '))

prints:

{
    "data": [
        {
            "site": "example1.com",
            "A1": "G",
            "A5": "G",
            "A10": "G"
        },
        {
            "site": "example2.com",
            "A1": "G",
            "A5": "R",
            "A10": "Y"
        }
    ],
    "Author": "joe"
}