How to sort dictionary via sorted() using lambda in key parameter?

Question

Python

We have a dictionary of dictionaries, which we get like this

Getting a dictionary of dictionaries

for elem in cur.fetchall():
        if elem[0] in publist:
            publist[elem[0]]["cat_id"].add(elem[5])
            
        else:
            publist[elem[0]]={"title": elem[1],
                      "text": elem[2],
                      "date": elem[3],
                      "author": elem[4],
                      "cat_id": {elem[5]
                                 }}

Trying to sort like this

Sorting

pub_sorted=sorted(publist,
                key=lambda elem:datetime.strptime(elem["date"], "%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S"),
                reverse=True)

We get an error . It seems that sorted gives the keys of the dictionary to the incoming key parameters, it is clear that they are not called by the key CHTYADNT tell me pliz? A similar muddle with a list of dictionaries rolls normallyTypeError: 'int' object is not subscriptable

Getting a list of dictionaries

worklist=[{"work_id": elem[0],
              "title": elem[1],
              "date": elem[2],
              "customer": elem[3],
              "author": elem[4],
              "workfrom": elem[5],
              "workto": elem[6]
        } for elem in cur.fetchall()]

Sorting

work_sorted=sorted(worklist(),
                key=lambda work:datetime.strptime(work["workfrom"], "%d.%m.%Y"),
                reverse=True)

Answer 1

sorted takes an iterable object.
sorted(publist, ...), where publist is a dictionary, iterates over the keys of the dictionary, this is how dictionary iteration works in python.
sorted(publist.items(), ...) - iterates over tuples of the form (key, value) from the dictionary.
It is from this that such an exit from sorted. She gives sorted, what she received.
By the way, only recently in python (3.7 officially and 3.6 in fact, sort of) the default dictionary remembers the order of the keys added to it.
Perhaps it is worth considering what and at what point in the code is more important: quick access to data by the dictionary key, or working with sorted data. You can sort at the moment when you really need it.