how do I sort a list of names?

[anderson1373]

I need to sort a list of first and last names from shortest to longest.
for example:
[John Doe, Jane Smith, Jane Doe]

I have to write a function to find the longest name but noe sure how to do it!

[bvdet]

In Python 2.3:

>>> names = ["John Doe", "Jane Smith", "Jane Doe", "Jo Nu"]
>>> names.sort(lambda x, y: cmp(len(x), len(y)))
>>> names
['Jo Nu', 'John Doe', 'Jane Doe', 'Jane Smith']
>>>

[dwblas]

I have to write a function to find the longest name but no(t) sure how to do it!

Do you want to sort or to find the longest name. Sorting the entire list just to find one item is very inefficient and if I was your instructor, would be rejected as too inefficient to be a viable solution.

##   does not allow for multiple names that are longest
names = ['Jon Doe', 'Jane Smith', 'Jane Doe']
longest_name = names[0]
longest = len(names[0])

for name in names:
    if len(name) > longest:
        longest = len(name)
        longest_name = name
print longest_name, longest