address sorting example

# Create example list of dictionaries
records = [{'name':'John', 'address':'6587 S Willow Rd'},
    {'name':'Bill', 'address':'8463 W Empire Ct'},
    {'name':'Frank', 'address':'4513 N Main St'},
    {'name':'Paul', 'address':'18894 E Park Av'}]

# Just a function to print the records
def printRecords():
    print('\n*** Name Address ***\n')
    for i in records:
        print(i['name'], i['address'])

# And now we'll use it to show that the records are not sorted
printRecords()

# We can sort addresses by road name using the built in sort function
# if we restructure each address so that the road name comes first.
# Then we can apply the same procedure after sorting to create a
# lookup table.

def flip(str):
    "moves the first two words of a string to end"
    wordlist = str.split(' ')
    ordered = wordlist[2:] + wordlist[:2]
    return ' '.join(ordered)

# Now we need a function we can pass a street address to and
# retrieve the matching dictionary entry.

def findrecord(s):
    for dict in records:
        if dict['address']==s:
            return dict

# With those functions in place we can now use list comprehensions
# to create a list of flipped addresses, sort them, flip them back.
# This list is then used as a lookup table to sort the list of
# records.

adds = [flip(d['address']) for d in records]
adds.sort()
adds = [flip(s) for s in adds]
records=[findrecord(s) for s in adds]

# And now we'll print the records again to show they are sorted
printRecords()