import yaml with open("tests-ignore.yml") as f: data = yaml.safe_load(f) le = data["less_important_device_detector_icons"] # type:dict for category, namelist in le.items(): print([type(a) for a in namelist]) print(namelist) namelist.sort(key=lambda s: s.casefold()) with open("tests-ignore.yml", "w") as f: yaml.safe_dump(data, f)