the order in which result of a set is printed in Python

Question

I'm new to Python. I've a question. Some one could help me.

I do the following in the command prompt:

>>> a=set()
>>> for i in range(0,8):
...     a.add((i,j))
... 

the answer that I get when I print it is like this:

>>> a
set([(2, 7), (4, 7), (6, 7), (5, 7), (7, 7), (0, 7), (1, 7), (3, 7)])

I understand that its printing out the results in the way its stored. But is there a way I can get it ordered? Say for example in this way:

(0,7), (1,7), (2,7), (3,7), ...

Thanks!

Answer 1

You are right that a set doesn't store its elements in sorted order. If you want to get a list of the elements in the set in sorted order you can use the built-in function sorted:

>>> a
set([(2, 7), (4, 7), (6, 7), (5, 7), (7, 7), (0, 7), (1, 7), (3, 7)])
>>> sorted(a)
[(0, 7), (1, 7), (2, 7), (3, 7), (4, 7), (5, 7), (6, 7), (7, 7)]