Why does “return list.sort()” return None, not the list?

Question

I\'ve been able to verify that the findUniqueWords does result in a sorted list. However, it does not return the list. Why?

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Answer 1

Python has two kinds of sorts: a sort method (or "member function") and a sort function. The sort method operates on the contents of the object named -- think of it as an action that the object is taking to re-order itself. The sort function is an operation over the data represented by an object and returns a new object with the same contents in a sorted order.

Given a list of integers named l the list itself will be reordered if we call l.sort():

>>> l = [1, 5, 2341, 467, 213, 123]
>>> l.sort()
>>> l
[1, 5, 123, 213, 467, 2341]

This method has no return value. But what if we try to assign the result of l.sort()?

>>> l = [1, 5, 2341, 467, 213, 123]
>>> r = l.sort()
>>> print(r)
None

r now equals actually nothing. This is one of those weird, somewhat annoying details that a programmer is likely to forget about after a period of absence from Python (which is why I am writing this, so I don't forget again).

The function sorted(), on the other hand, will not do anything to the contents of l, but will return a new, sorted list with the same contents as l:

>>> l = [1, 5, 2341, 467, 213, 123]
>>> r = sorted(l)
>>> l
[1, 5, 2341, 467, 213, 123]
>>> r
[1, 5, 123, 213, 467, 2341]

Be aware that the returned value is not a deep copy, so be cautious about side-effecty operations over elements contained within the list as usual:

>>> spam = [8, 2, 4, 7]
>>> eggs = [3, 1, 4, 5]
>>> l = [spam, eggs]
>>> r = sorted(l)
>>> l
[[8, 2, 4, 7], [3, 1, 4, 5]]
>>> r
[[3, 1, 4, 5], [8, 2, 4, 7]]
>>> spam.sort()
>>> eggs.sort()
>>> l
[[2, 4, 7, 8], [1, 3, 4, 5]]
>>> r
[[1, 3, 4, 5], [2, 4, 7, 8]]