Pandas DataFrame sort_index() Method

Example

Sort the DataFrame by index labels:

import pandas as pd

data = {
"age": [50, 40, 30, 40, 20, 10, 30],
"qualified": [True, False, False, False, False, True, True]
}

idx = ["Mary", "Sally", "Emil", "Tobias", "Linus", "John", "Peter"]
df = pd.DataFrame(data, index = idx)

newdf = df.sort_index()

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Definition and Usage

The sort_index() method sorts the DataFrame by the index.

Syntax

dataframe.sort_index(axis, level, ascending, inplace, kind, na_position, sort_remaining, ignore_index, key)

Parameters

The parameters are keyword arguments.

Parameter	Value	Description
axis	`0 1 'index' 'columns'`	Optional. Default 0. Specifies the axis to sort by
level	String Number List of Strings/Numbers	Optional. Default None. Specifies the index level to sort on
ascending	`True False`	Optional, default True. Specifies whether to sort ascending (0 -> 9) or descending (9 -> 0)
inplace	`True False`	Optional, default False. Specifies whether to perform the operation on the original DataFrame or not, if not, which is default, this method returns a new DataFrame
kind	`'quicksort' 'mergesort' 'heapsort'`	Optional, default 'quicksort'. Specifies the sorting algorithm
na_position	`'first' 'last'`	Optional, default 'last'. Specifies how to handle NULL values. 'first' means put them first, 'last' means put them last.
sort_remaining	`True False`	Optional, default True. Specifies whether to sort by other levels as well, or not
ignore_index	`True False`	Optional, default False. Specifies whether to ignore index or not. If True the original indexes are ignored, and replaced by 0, 1, 2 etc.
key	Function	Optional, specify a function to be executed before the sorting