python - How do I group this list of dicts by the same month?

Question

Python newb... I have a list of dicts that I am trying to organize into the same month & year:

[{'date':'2008-04-23','value':'1'},
{'date':'2008-04-01','value':'8'},
{'date':'2008-04-05','value':'3'},
{'date':'2009-04-19','value':'5'},
{'date':'2009-04-21','value':'8'},
{'date':'2010-09-09','value':'3'},
{'date':'2010-09-10','value':'4'},
]

What I'm trying to get is a list of dicts like this:

[{'date':2008-04-01,'value':'12'},
{'date':2009-04-01,'value':'13'},
{'date':2010-09-01,'value':'7'},
]

Here's my code, which is just printing an empty list:

from datetime import datetime

myList = [{'date':'2008-04-23','value':'1'}, {'date':'2008-04-01','value':'8'}, {'date':'2008-04-05','value':'3'}, {'date':'2009-04-19','value':'5'}, {'date':'2009-04-21','value':'8'},{'date':'2010-09-09','value':'3'},
    {'date':'2010-09-10','value':'4'},
    ]

newList = []
newDict = {}

for cnt in range(len(myList)):
    for k,v in myList[cnt].iteritems():
        if k == 'date':
            d = datetime.strptime(v,'%Y-%m-%d').date()
            for elem in newList:
                if elem['date'] != d:
                    newList.append({'date':d,'value':myList[cnt]['value']})
                else:
                    newList[cnt]['value'] += myList[cnt]['value']

print newList   

Answer 1

First, I would sort the data¹:

>>> lst = [{'date':'2008-04-23','value':'1'},
... {'date':'2008-04-01','value':'8'},
... {'date':'2008-04-05','value':'3'},
... {'date':'2009-04-19','value':'5'},
... {'date':'2009-04-21','value':'8'},
... {'date':'2010-09-09','value':'3'},
... {'date':'2010-09-10','value':'4'},
... ]
>>> lst.sort(key=lambda x:x['date'][:7])
>>> lst
[{'date': '2008-04-23', 'value': '1'}, {'date': '2008-04-01', 'value': '8'}, {'date': '2008-04-05', 'value': '3'}, {'date': '2009-04-19', 'value': '5'}, {'date': '2009-04-21', 'value': '8'}, {'date': '2010-09-09', 'value': '3'}, {'date': '2010-09-10', 'value': '4'}]

Then, I would use itertools.groupby to do the grouping:

>>> from itertools import groupby
>>> for k,v in groupby(lst,key=lambda x:x['date'][:7]):
...    print k, list(v)
... 
2008-04 [{'date': '2008-04-23', 'value': '1'}, {'date': '2008-04-01', 'value': '8'}, {'date': '2008-04-05', 'value': '3'}]
2009-04 [{'date': '2009-04-19', 'value': '5'}, {'date': '2009-04-21', 'value': '8'}]
2010-09 [{'date': '2010-09-09', 'value': '3'}, {'date': '2010-09-10', 'value': '4'}]
>>> 

Now, to get the output you wanted:

>>> for k,v in groupby(lst,key=lambda x:x['date'][:7]):
...     print {'date':k+'-01','value':sum(int(d['value']) for d in v)}
... 
{'date': '2008-04-01', 'value': 12}
{'date': '2009-04-01', 'value': 13}
{'date': '2010-09-01', 'value': 7}

^{1Your data actually already appears to be sorted in this regard, so you might be able to skip this step.}