Notice in this example that mulato and camel don't show up in our result. Only the last element with the specified key shows up. The last result for c actually wipes out two previous results. But watch the new version where I have the data sorted first on same key.
list_things = ['goat', 'dog', 'donkey', 'mulato', 'cow', 'cat', ('persons', 'man', 'woman'), \
'wombat', 'mongoose', 'malloo', 'camel']
c = groupby(list_things, key=lambda x: x[0])
dic = {}
for k, v in c:
dic[k] = list(v)
dic
Results in
{'c': ['camel'],
'd': ['dog', 'donkey'],
'g': ['goat'],
'm': ['mongoose', 'malloo'],
'persons': [('persons', 'man', 'woman')],
'w': ['wombat']}
Sorted Version
list_things = ['goat', 'dog', 'donkey', 'mulato', 'cow', 'cat', ('persons', 'man', 'woman'), \
'wombat', 'mongoose', 'malloo', 'camel']
sorted_list = sorted(list_things, key = lambda x: x[0])
print(sorted_list)
print()
c = groupby(sorted_list, key=lambda x: x[0])
dic = {}
for k, v in c:
dic[k] = list(v)
dic
Results in
['cow', 'cat', 'camel', 'dog', 'donkey', 'goat', 'mulato', 'mongoose', 'malloo', ('persons', 'man', 'woman'), 'wombat']
{'c': ['cow', 'cat', 'camel'],
'd': ['dog', 'donkey'],
'g': ['goat'],
'm': ['mulato', 'mongoose', 'malloo'],
'persons': [('persons', 'man', 'woman')],
'w': ['wombat']}