How can I sort a std::map first by value, then by key?

I need to sort a std::map by value, then by key. The map contains data like the following:

  1  realistically
  8         really
  4         reason
  3     reasonable
  1     reasonably
  1     reassemble
  1    reassembled
  2      recognize
 92         record
 48        records
  7           recs

I need to get the values in order, but the kicker is that the keys need to be in alphabetical order after the values are in order. How can I do this?

std::map will sort its elements by keys. It doesn't care about the values when sorting.

You can use std::vector<std::pair<K,V>> then sort it using std::sort followed by std::stable_sort:

std::vector<std::pair<K,V>> items;

//fill items

//sort by value using std::sort
std::sort(items.begin(), items.end(), value_comparer);

//sort by key using std::stable_sort
std::stable_sort(items.begin(), items.end(), key_comparer);

Note that while std::sort is chosen for performance reason, std::stable_sort is needed for correct ordering, as you want the order-by-value to be preserved.

@gsf noted in the comment, you could use only std::sort if you choose a comparer which compares values first, and IF they're equal, sort the keys.

auto cmp = [](std::pair<K,V> const & a, std::pair<K,V> const & b) 
{ 
     return a.second != b.second?  a.second < b.second : a.first < b.first;
};
std::sort(items.begin(), items.end(), cmp);

That should be efficient.

But wait, there is a better approach: store std::pair<V,K> instead of std::pair<K,V> and then you don't need any comparer at all — the standard comparer for std::pair would be enough, as it compares first (which is V) first then second which is K:

std::vector<std::pair<V,K>> items;
//...
std::sort(items.begin(), items.end());

That should work great.