Returns ------- sorted_index : pandas.Index Sorted copy of the index. indexer : numpy.ndarray, optional The indices that the index itself was sorted by. See Also -------- Series.sort_values : Sort values of a Series. DataFrame.sort_values : Sort values in a DataFrame. Examples -------- >>> idx = pd.Index([10, 100, 1, 1000]) >>> idx Index([10, 100, 1, 1000], dtype='int64') Sort values in ascending order (default behavior). >>> idx.sort_values() Index([1, 10, 100, 1000], dtype='int64') Sort values in descending order, and also get the indices `idx` was sorted by. >>> idx.sort_values(ascending=False, return_indexer=True) (Index([1000, 100, 10, 1], dtype='int64'), array([3, 1, 0, 2])) )