How to sort a list alphabetically?

Question

It is necessary to create a list of random letters of the alphabet. And then sort it alphabetically. To create such a list, I use the following code:

# Creating a random vector of letters
random_text_data = sample(letters, 10)
random_text_data

# Convert to list
list_text_data = as.list(random_text_data)
list_text_data

In the console I get the following:

> random_text_data
 [1] "h" "m" "q" "b" "z" "i" "y" "f" "d" "e"
> # Convert to list
> list_text_data = as.list(random_text_data)
> list_text_data
[[1]]
[1] "h"

[[2]]
[1] "m"

[[3]]
[1] "q"

[[4]]
[1] "b"

[[5]]
[1] "z"

[[6]]
[1] "i"

[[7]]
[1] "y"

[[8]]
[1] "f"

[[9]]
[1] "d"

[[10]]
[1] "e"

Now I need to sort it alphabetically. I have tried the following:

# Sort list alphabetically
sort_data = sort(list_text_data)

But get error:

> sort_data = sort(list_text_data)
Error in sort.int(x, na.last = na.last, decreasing = decreasing, ...) : 
'x' must be elementary

How should you sort?

Answer 1

Convert character to integer, then order:

# reproducible example data
set.seed(1); random_text_data = sample(letters, 3)
list_text_data = as.list(random_text_data)
# [[1]]
# [1] "y"
# 
# [[2]]
# [1] "d"
# 
# [[3]]
# [1] "g"


# sort
list_text_data[ order(sapply(list_text_data, utf8ToInt)) ]
# [[1]]
# [1] "d"
# 
# [[2]]
# [1] "g"
# 
# [[3]]
# [1] "y"

Answer 2

We may have to flatten the list first before sorting the elements. We can try the sort + unlist like below

relist(sort(unlist(list_text_data)), list_text_data)