How to Sort a Dictionary by Key in Python

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Sorting a dictionary by key is a common task in Python, especially when presenting data in a more structured or readable format. While dictionaries are inherently unordered in older Python versions (before 3.7), modern Python guarantees that they maintain insertion order. Sorting a dictionary can help with data such as configurations, statistics, or even logs.

This post will explore how to sort a dictionary by its keys, showcase different methods, and cover edge cases.

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Basic Method: Using sorted()

The simplest way to sort a dictionary by its keys is to use Python’s built-in sorted() function.

Example:

my_dict = {"b": 2, "a": 1, "c": 3}

# Sorting the dictionary by key
sorted_dict = dict(sorted(my_dict.items()))

print(sorted_dict)

Output:

{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

Explanation:

1. my_dict.items(): Converts the dictionary into a sequence of (key, value) tuples.
2. sorted(): Sorts these tuples by key (default for tuple sorting).