# create du.out with (for example) # # du -cd 1 logger/2016 > du.out with open('du.out') as f: duout = [line.split(None,1) for line in f.read().split('\n')] while len(duout[-1]) != 2: duout = duout[:-1] for size, file in sorted([(int(size), file) for size, file in duout]): print(size, file)