Sort a file's lines by asking which lines are better than the others.

humansort.py

'''A command line utility to sort a list of things.
It presents you two options, from which you pick the "best".
The list is sorted and presented to you in sorted order.

So, given a file with some things in it:
$ cat things.txt 
asdf
qwer
zxcv

And we say qwer is better than asdf, and zxcv is better than qwer...
$ python2.7 sort.py things.txt 
(0):"qwer" OR (1):"asdf"? 0
(0):"zxcv" OR (1):"qwer"? 0
Wrote your sorted list to things.txt.out

So zxcv is better than qwer, which is better than asdf.
$ cat things.txt.out 
zxcv
qwer
asdf
'''

def ask(first, second):
    '''Ask the user which choice they prefer.'''

    choice = None
    while choice not in ("0", "1"):
        choice = raw_input('(0):"{0}" OR (1):"{1}"? '.format(first.strip(), second.strip()))

    if choice == "0":
        return -1
    elif choice == "1":
        return 1
    else:
        return 0

def humansort(items):
    '''Sort a list of items by asking the user which is better.'''
    return sorted(items, cmp=ask)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import fileinput
    file_input = list(fileinput.input())
    filename = fileinput.filename()+".out"
    out = humansort(file_input)
    with open(filename, 'w') as f:
        for line in out:
            f.write(line)

    print("Wrote your sorted list to {0}".format(filename))