How to sort inner tables by value?

Question

So, as the title says, I would like to sort a table of tables in Lua. One such example nested table is below.

tabl = {2.0={amount=281.0, meta=0.0, displayName=Dirt, name=minecraft:dirt}, 3.0={amount=190103.0, meta=0.0, displayName=Cobblestone, name=minecraft:cobblestone}, ...}

I would like to go through and return a table of the top ten tabl[*]['amount'] listed with their respective tabl[*]['displayName'] * being a wildcard for tabl[1.0] through tabl[max.0]

A finished table should look something like:

sorted = {1={displayName=Cobblestone, amount=190103}, 2={displayName=Dirt, amount=281}, ...}

I hope this makes sense to all out there.

Link to full nested table: Full Piece FYI: I am not in control of how the table is returned to me; I got them from the function listItems() in this API.

Answer 1

So, I worked at it for a while, and thanks to community answers I came up with this piece:

bridge = peripheral.wrap("left")
items = bridge.listItems()

sorted = {}

for i, last in next, items do
  sorted[i] = {}
  sorted[i]["displayName"] = items[i]["displayName"]
  sorted[i]["amount"] = items[i]["amount"]
end

table.sort(sorted, function(a,b) return a.amount > b.amount end)

for i = 1, 10 do
  print(i .. ": " .. sorted[i].displayName .. ": " .. sorted[i].amount)
end

It returned the top 10 inventories:

1: Cobblestone: 202924
2: Gunpowder: 1382
3: Flint: 1375
4: Oak Sapling: 1099
5: Arrow: 966
6: Bone Meal: 946
7: Sky Stone Dust: 808
8: Certus Quartz Dust: 726
9: Rotten Flesh: 627
10: Coal: 618