This is a pure-Python library for Czech-language alphabetical sorting.

From Python:

>>> import czech_sort

>>> czech_sort.sorted(['sídliště', 'shoda', 'schody'])
['shoda', 'schody', 'sídliště']

>>> sorted(['sídliště', 'shoda', 'schody'], key=czech_sort.key)
['shoda', 'schody', 'sídliště']

On the command line::

$ python -m czech_sort < file.txt
shoda
schody
sídliště

To sort Python strings in the Czech language, there are three other options:

• Use PyICU. This can sort really well, and do all kinds of wonderful, standards-compliant Unicode things. Perfect for publication-quality results. Unfortunately, ICU can be a major pain to install, making it overkill if you just want to sort a list of strings.
• Set the locale, then use locale.strxfrm. (Yes, strxfrm! Try saying that ten times fast!) This depends on the Czech POSIX locale being available, so it's hardly portable.
• Just use Python's built-in string sort. This sorts lexicographically by Unicode codepoints. It might be good enough for you? Maybe?

The czech-sort library is a compromise. It should give you good results in the 99% case.

Do not use this if you need proper sorting of symbols, non-Latin scripts, or diacritics other than Czech/Slovak.

Any other deviation from the relevant standard, ČSN 97 6030, should be considered a bug. However, neither the author nor the community at large have access to the standard, which makes finding such bugs somewhat difficult.

Takes an iterable of strings, and returns a list of them, sorted.

Returns a sort key object for a given string.

This function is suitable as the key for functions like the built-in sorted or list.sort.

The czech-sort library can be used with Python 2.6+ and 3.5+.

Under Python 2, it only accepts unicode strings.

Install this into your virtualenv by running:

$ pip install czech-sort

Bug reports and comments are welcome at Github.

Patches are also welcome! Source code is hosted at Github:

$ git clone http://github.com/encukou/czech-sort

To run the included tests:

$ python -m pip install -e.[test]
$ python -m pytest

If you would like to contribute, but are confused by the above, then please e-mail encukou at gmail dot com.

The project is licensed under the MIT license. May it serve you well.