Objects of different types can be compared. The results are arbitrary, but consistent. They are ordered such that None is less than anything else, numeric types are smaller than non-numeric types, and everything else is ordered lexicographically by type. Thus, an int is less than a str and a tuple is greater than a list:
[1, 2] > 'foo'
# Out: False
(1, 2) > 'foo'
# Out: True
[1, 2] > (1, 2)
# Out: False
100 < [1, 'x'] < 'xyz' < (1, 'x')
# Out: True
This was originally done so a list of mixed types could be sorted and objects would be grouped together by type:
l = [7, 'x', (1, 2), [5, 6], 5, 8.0, 'y', 1.2, [7, 8], 'z']
sorted(l)
# Out: [1.2, 5, 7, 8.0, [5, 6], [7, 8], 'x', 'y', 'z', (1, 2)]
An exception is raised when comparing different (non-numeric) types:
1 < 1.5
# Out: True
[1, 2] > 'foo'
# TypeError: unorderable types: list() > str()
(1, 2) > 'foo'
# TypeError: unorderable types: tuple() > str()
[1, 2] > (1, 2)
# TypeError: unorderable types: list() > tuple()
To sort mixed lists in Python 3 by types and to achieve compatibility between versions, you have to provide a key to the sorted function:
>>> list = [1, 'hello', [3, 4], {'python': 2}, 'stackoverflow', 8, {'python': 3}, [5, 6]]
>>> sorted(list, key=str)
# Out: [1, 8, [3, 4], [5, 6], 'hello', 'stackoverflow', {'python': 2}, {'python': 3}]
Using str as the key function temporarily converts each item to a string only for the purposes of comparison. It then sees the string representation starting with either \[, \', \{ or 0-9 and it’s able to sort those (and all the following characters).
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