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To: python-list@python.org
From: Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu>
Subject: Re: Encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:24:25 -0400
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:25516

On 7/17/2012 8:01 AM, Lipska the Kat wrote:
> On 17/07/12 09:45, Lipska the Kat wrote:
>> Pythoners
>>
>> Python 2.7.3
>> Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS
>>
>> I've been taking a brief look at Python.
>>
>
> snip
>
> Well I've set myself a task.
> I have a text file containing a list of stock items
> each line contains the number in stock followed by a tab followed by the
> name of the item. I need to implement something that reads in the text
> file and outputs the stock list in ascending or descending order of
> quantity.

Nice problem. Easy but non-trivial.

> Please note I am NOT asking for solutions.

Ok. With some inefficient redundancy, I believe it could be done in one 
line in Python. Better code would take a few more.

> In bash this is laughably trivial
>
> sort -nr $1 | head -${2:-10}

Won't sort work alphabetically and leave the following as is?

1\talpha
11\tbeta
2\tgamma

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy