def sortValue(line): line_fields = line.strip().split(',') price = float(line_fields[2]) return price f1 = open("houseLahti.txt") contents = f1.readlines() # sorting using our custom logic contents.sort(key=sortValue) f1.close() #writing into new file f2 = open("salehouseLahti.txt","w") for line in contents: f2.write(line) f2.close()