I have a list of strings like this:
X = [\"a\", \"b\", \"c\", \"d\", \"e\", \"f\", \"g\", \"h\", \"i\"]
Y = [ 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 2, 0, 1 ]
Zip the two lists together, sort it, then take the parts you want:
>>> yx = zip(Y, X)
>>> yx
[(0, 'a'), (1, 'b'), (1, 'c'), (0, 'd'), (1, 'e'), (2, 'f'), (2, 'g'), (0, 'h'), (1, 'i')]
>>> yx.sort()
>>> yx
[(0, 'a'), (0, 'd'), (0, 'h'), (1, 'b'), (1, 'c'), (1, 'e'), (1, 'i'), (2, 'f'), (2, 'g')]
>>> x_sorted = [x for y, x in yx]
>>> x_sorted
['a', 'd', 'h', 'b', 'c', 'e', 'i', 'f', 'g']
Combine these together to get:
[x for y, x in sorted(zip(Y, X))]