In python, sorting on date field, field may sometimes be null

Question

I am having a hard time coming up with a slick way to handle this sort. I have data coming back from a database read. I want to sort on the accoutingdate. However, accoutingd

Answer 1

You could use a custom sorting function that treats None specially:

def nonecmp(a, b):
  if a is None and b is None:
    return 0
  if a is None:
    return -1
  if b is None:
    return 1
  return cmp(a, b)

results = sorted(results, cmp=nonecmp, ...)

This treats None as being smaller than all datetime objects.