python, convert a dictionary to a sorted list by value instead of key

Question

I have a collections.defaultdict(int) that I\'m building to keep count of how many times a key shows up in a set of data. I later want to be able to sort it (obviously by turnin

Answer 1

from collections import defaultdict
adict = defaultdict(int)

adict['a'] += 1
adict['b'] += 3
adict['c'] += 5
adict['d'] += 2

for key, value in sorted(adict.items(), lambda a, b: cmp(a[1], b[1]), reverse=True):
    print "%r => %r" % (key, value)

>>> 
'c' => 5
'b' => 3
'd' => 2
'a' => 1