How do I sort a dictionary by value?

Python 3.7+ or CPython 3.6

Dicts preserve insertion order in Python 3.7+. Same in CPython 3.6, but it's an implementation detail.

>>> x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
>>> {k: v for k, v in sorted(x.items(), key=lambda item: item[1])}
{0: 0, 2: 1, 1: 2, 4: 3, 3: 4}

or

>>> dict(sorted(x.items(), key=lambda item: item[1]))
{0: 0, 2: 1, 1: 2, 4: 3, 3: 4}

Older Python

It is not possible to sort a dictionary, only to get a representation of a dictionary that is sorted. Dictionaries are inherently orderless, but other types, such as lists and tuples, are not. So you need an ordered data type to represent sorted values, which will be a list—probably a list of tuples.

For instance,

import operator
x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
sorted_x = sorted(x.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1))

sorted_x will be a list of tuples sorted by the second element in each tuple. dict(sorted_x) == x.

And for those wishing to sort on keys instead of values:

import operator
x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
sorted_x = sorted(x.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(0))

In Python3 since unpacking is not allowed we can use

x = {1: 2, 3: 4, 4: 3, 2: 1, 0: 0}
sorted_x = sorted(x.items(), key=lambda kv: kv[1])

If you want the output as a dict, you can use collections.OrderedDict:

import collections

sorted_dict = collections.OrderedDict(sorted_x)

You could use:

sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])

This will sort the dictionary by the values of each entry within the dictionary from smallest to largest.

To sort it in descending order just add reverse=True:

sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True)

Input:

d = {'one':1,'three':3,'five':5,'two':2,'four':4}
a = sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])    
print(a)

Output:

[('one', 1), ('two', 2), ('three', 3), ('four', 4), ('five', 5)]

Dicts can't be sorted, but you can build a sorted list from them.

A sorted list of dict values:

sorted(d.values())

A list of (key, value) pairs, sorted by value:

from operator import itemgetter
sorted(d.items(), key=itemgetter(1))

In recent Python 2.7, we have the new OrderedDict type, which remembers the order in which the items were added.

>>> d = {"third": 3, "first": 1, "fourth": 4, "second": 2}

>>> for k, v in d.items():
...     print "%s: %s" % (k, v)
...
second: 2
fourth: 4
third: 3
first: 1

>>> d
{'second': 2, 'fourth': 4, 'third': 3, 'first': 1}

To make a new ordered dictionary from the original, sorting by the values:

>>> from collections import OrderedDict
>>> d_sorted_by_value = OrderedDict(sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]))

The OrderedDict behaves like a normal dict:

>>> for k, v in d_sorted_by_value.items():
...     print "%s: %s" % (k, v)
...
first: 1
second: 2
third: 3
fourth: 4

>>> d_sorted_by_value
OrderedDict([('first': 1), ('second': 2), ('third': 3), ('fourth': 4)])