There was discussion about language desing here recently -- other
languages are aparently badly designed.
They:

1. Allow you to sort lists, which is bad idea.
2. Probably use name like 'sort.list' for that purpose, which is even
worse idea.
3. Do not respond 'error: have you called sort on a list' when you
call sort.list on a list, which is completely crazy.

Stop using other languages.  Learn the rules, there are plenty.

\misiek





> THank you. I just didn't know the "rules". In other languages it is possible to pass in a 'compare' function so the sort is defined by the function. I guess I was a) > wondering why it failed, and b) if there was a similar work around to sort generic lists. Also I was specifically addressing the list that I gave in the example not a > generic list. I think I have a solution.

> Thank you.

Kevin
---- Erik Iverson <iverson@biostat.wisc.edu> <iverson@biostat.wisc.edu> wrote:

> Since objects of class "list" in R can be made up of heterogeneous
> objects, sorting them does not make much sense.  For example, does "A",
> come before or after 1000, does a linear model summary come before or
> after pi?
>
> If your data are all numeric, store them as a numeric vector, where sort
> works.  Vectors can be named in R, as in your example.
>
> Also, 'order' does something different than 'sort'.
>
> try the following:
>
> x <- c(a = 1, b = 4, c = 2)
> sort(x)
> order(x)
>
> Hope that helps,
> Erik
>
>
>
> rkevinburton@charter.net wrote:

> > I am trying to sort a list and the data is obiously not in the right format. I am trying:
> >
> > x <- list()
> > x[["A"]] <- 1
> > x[["B"]] <- 2
> >
> > order(x)
> >
> > But am getting:
> >
> > Error in order(x) : unimplemented type 'list' in 'orderVector1'
> >
> > How should I change the list so that it can be sorted? What kinds of objects (classes of objects) can be sorted?
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Kevin
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help@r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html <http://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html>
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

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