Normalized cmp for sorting lists of strings with accents

normalized_cmp.py

import unicodedata


def normalized_cmp(x, y):
    if isinstance(x, unicode) and isinstance(y, unicode):
        normalized_x = ([c for c in unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', x) if not unicodedata.combining(c)] + [''])[0]
        normalized_y = ([c for c in unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', y) if not unicodedata.combining(c)] + [''])[0]
        
        return cmp(normalized_x, normalized_y)
    
    return cmp(x, y)