[python] Sorting Python list based on the length of the string

I want to sort a list of strings based on the string length. I tried to use sort as follows, but it doesn't seem to give me correct result.

xs = ['dddd','a','bb','ccc']
print xs
xs.sort(lambda x,y: len(x) < len(y))
print xs

['dddd', 'a', 'bb', 'ccc']
['dddd', 'a', 'bb', 'ccc']

What might be wrong?

I Would like to add how the pythonic key function works while sorting :

Decorate-Sort-Undecorate Design Pattern :

Python’s support for a key function when sorting is implemented using what is known as the decorate-sort-undecorate design pattern.

It proceeds in 3 steps:

1. Each element of the list is temporarily replaced with a “decorated” version that includes the result of the key function applied to the element.

2. The list is sorted based upon the natural order of the keys.

3. The decorated elements are replaced by the original elements.

Key parameter to specify a function to be called on each list element prior to making comparisons. docs

The easiest way to do this is:

list.sort(key = lambda x:len(x))

The same as in Eli's answer - just using a shorter form, because you can skip a lambda part here.

Creating new list:

>>> xs = ['dddd','a','bb','ccc']
>>> sorted(xs, key=len)
['a', 'bb', 'ccc', 'dddd']

In-place sorting:

>>> xs.sort(key=len)
>>> xs
['a', 'bb', 'ccc', 'dddd']

def lensort(list_1):
    list_2=[];list_3=[]
for i in list_1:
    list_2.append([i,len(i)])
list_2.sort(key = lambda x : x[1])
for i in list_2:
    list_3.append(i[0])
return list_3

This works for me!

I can do it using below two methods, using function

def lensort(x):
    list1 = []
    for i in x:
        list1.append([len(i),i])
    return sorted(list1)

lista = ['a', 'bb', 'ccc', 'dddd']
a=lensort(lista)
print([l[1] for l in a])

In one Liner using Lambda, as below, a already answered above.

 lista = ['a', 'bb', 'ccc', 'dddd']
 lista.sort(key = lambda x:len(x))
 print(lista)

Write a function lensort to sort a list of strings based on length.

def lensort(a):
    n = len(a)
    for i in range(n):
        for j in range(i+1,n):
            if len(a[i]) > len(a[j]):
                temp = a[i]
                a[i] = a[j]
                a[j] = temp
    return a
print lensort(["hello","bye","good"])