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Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:28:44 +0000
From: <jyoung79@kc.rr.com>
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Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.python:9715

I'm currently working on a project where I'm looping through xml elements, 
pulling the 'id' attribute (which will be coerced to a number) as well as the 
element tag.  I'm needing these elements in numerical order (from the id).  
Example xml might look like:

<price id="5">
<copyright id="1">
<address id="3">

There will be cases where elements might be excluded, but I'd still need to 
put what I find in id numerical order.  In the above example I would need 
the order of 1, 3, 5 (or copyright, address, price).  In javascript I can easily 
index an array, and any preceding elements that don't exist will be set to 
'undefined':

-----
var a = [];

a[parseInt('5')] = 'price';
a[parseInt('1')] = 'copyright';
a[parseInt('3')] = 'address';

//  a is now   [undefined, copyright, undefined, address, undefined, price]
-----

Next, I can loop through the array and remove every 'undefined' in order to 
get the ordered array I need:

-----
> var newA = [];

> for (var x = 0; x < a.length; x++) { 
    if (a[x] != undefined) { 
        newA.push(a[x]); 
    }
}

// newA is now   [copyright, address, price]
-----

My question is, does python have a similar way to do something like this?  
I'm assuming the best way is to create a dictionary and then sort it by 
the keys?

Thanks.

Jay