[R] sort charcters in W2K and NT

[Ivar Herfindal]

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:58:49 +0200, Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.uni- 
dortmund.de> wrote:

> Ivar Herfindal wrote:
>
>> Hello.
>>
>> I have a problem using sort() in windows 2000 and windows NT 4.0, 
>> running R 1.8.0 on both. I want to sort a vector of characters names, 
>> where I have used "Scandinavian" letters, like 'Æ', 'Ø', and 'Å' (for 
>> those who cannot display these letters this question seems rather 
>> meaningless, i guess). Windows 2000 sorts the vector like I am used to 
>> from other software, with 'Å' as the last letter in the alphabet, while 
>> windows NT has "Å" just after "A", and "Ø" following "O".
>>
>> Is there a way to solve this problem (other than replace the 
>> Scandinavian letters)?
>>
>> A short example:
>> sort(c('a','p','å'))
>> # on windows 2000:
>> [1] "a" "p" "å"
>>
>> # on windows NT
>> [1] "a" "å" "p"
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>
> ?sort tells us:
>
> "The sort order for character vectors will depend on the collating 
> sequence of the locale in use: see Comparison."
>
> and ?Comparison points you to ?locales which gives an example:
>
> Sys.setlocale("LC_COLLATE", "C")  # turn off locale-specific sorting
>
> Uwe Ligges
>

Thanks for the help, it worked great. However, it appers that using the 
Sys.setlocale("LC_COLLATE", "C") makes R sort the vector in a new way, 
different from the two mentioned above. But since R sorts character vectors 
at same manner on both W2K and Window NT, after writing 
Sys.setlocale("LC_COLLATE", "C"), it is sufficient for me.

Ivar Herfindal

>
>> Ivar Herfindal
>>
>> On windows 2000:
>>
>>> version
>>
>> _              platform i386-pc-mingw32
>> arch     i386           os       mingw32        system   i386, mingw32  
>> status                  major    1              minor    8.0            
>> year     2003           month    10             day      08             
>> language R
>>
>>>
>>
>> On windows NT:
>>
>>> version
>>
>> _              platform i386-pc-mingw32
>> arch     i386           os       mingw32        system   i386, mingw32  
>> status                  major    1              minor    8.0            
>> year     2003           month    10             day      08             
>> language R
>>
>>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>
>
>