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

To understand why it does not return the list:

sort() doesn't return any value while the sort() method just sorts the elements of a given list in a specific order - ascending or descending without returning any value.

So problem is with answer = newList.sort() where answer is none.

Instead you can just do return newList.sort().

The syntax of the sort() method is:

list.sort(key=..., reverse=...)

Alternatively, you can also use Python's in-built function sorted() for the same purpose.

sorted(list, key=..., reverse=...)

Note: The simplest difference between sort() and sorted() is: sort() doesn't return any value while, sorted() returns an iterable list.

So in your case answer = sorted(newList).