How to sort a list of strings numerically?

Question

I know that this sounds trivial but I did not realize that the sort() function of Python was weird. I have a list of \"numbers\" that are actually in string for

Answer 1

Python's sort isn't weird. It's just that this code:

for item in list1:
   item=int(item)

isn't doing what you think it is - item is not replaced back into the list, it is simply thrown away.

Anyway, the correct solution is to use key=int as others have shown you.