Sorted and sort function not giving same result

Question

I have an array nums. I perform following operations:

   nums = [1,1,2,2,2,3]

   nums.sort(reverse=True)

   nums2 = sorted(nums, key=nums.count)

   nums.sort(key=nums.count)

After performing these operations.I have following values of nums and nums2:

nums = [3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1]  
nums2 = [3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2]

Can anyone tell me why nums and nums2 are not equal?I am confused.

This question has been answered in this post already. stackoverflow.com/questions/62818275/… — Mahesh Babu Gorantla
– Mahesh Babu Gorantla, Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 14:49

mozway · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-05 14:47:08Z

1

This doesn't work because sort modifies nums in place while using it to calculate the counts. It works fine if you use a copy:

nums = [1,1,2,2,2,3]
nums_copy = nums.copy()
nums.sort(key=nums_copy.count)
nums

answered Jul 5, 2021 at 14:47

mozway

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