# coding: utf-8 """ The approach taken is explained below. I decided to do it simply. Initially I was considering parsing the data into some sort of structure and then generating an appropriate README. I am still considering doing it - but for now this should work. The only issue I see is that it only sorts the entries at the lowest level, and that the order of the top-level contents do not match the order of the actual entries. This could be extended by having nested blocks, sorting them recursively and flattening the end structure into a list of lines. Revision 2 maybe ^.^. """ def main(): # First, we load the current README into memory as an array of lines with open('README.md', 'r') as read_me_file: read_me = read_me_file.readlines() # Then we cluster the lines together as blocks # Each block represents a collection of lines that should be sorted # This was done by assuming only links ([...](...)) are meant to be sorted # Clustering is done by indentation blocks = [] last_indent = None for line in read_me: s_line = line.lstrip() indent = len(line) - len(s_line) if any([s_line.startswith(s) for s in ['* [', '- [']]): if indent == last_indent: blocks[-1].append(line) else: blocks.append([line]) last_indent = indent else: blocks.append([line]) last_indent = None with open('README.md', 'w+') as sorted_file: # Then all of the blocks are sorted individually blocks = [''.join(sorted(block, key=lambda s: s.lower())) for block in blocks] # And the result is written back to README.md sorted_file.write(''.join(blocks)) if __name__ == "__main__": main()