Reorder List Elements

[gidtil]

Is there an existing function that can reorder elements within a list. For Example,

(setq alist (list 5 7 6 1 3 8 9 4 2 0))
(5 7 6 1 3 8 9 4 2 0)

(function alist)
(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)

I cannot control the way that the list is created. I was hoping there was an existing routine that already did something like this.

Mylist comes out more similar to this though:

(1-13 1-07 4-02 1-03 3-06)

I'd Need it to result like this:

(1-03 1-07 1-13 3-06 4-02)

If you know of an existing function, or even routine, that does this, I would really appreciate your knowledge. Thank you.

[Harry_Is_Alive]

You want to look at (VL-SORT) and (VL-SORT-I) in Visual LISP.

(setq A '(9 2 7 3 5 8))

(setq B (vl-sort A '>))

B is set to (9 8 7 5 3 2)

Keep on programmin'
Hot Tip Harry (Bill Kramer)

[CarlB]

I tried vl-sort on your list and it choked on the number format. it did however handle sort the numbers as text.

(vl-sort '("1-13" "1-07" "4-02" "1-03" "3-06") '<)

resulted in:

("1-03" "1-07" "1-13" "3-06" "4-02")

so you may need to do some string/number manipulation.

[Harry_Is_Alive]

Originally Posted by CarlB

I tried vl-sort on your list and it choked on the number format. it did however handle sort the numbers as text.

(vl-sort '("1-13" "1-07" "4-02" "1-03" "3-06") '<)

resulted in:

("1-03" "1-07" "1-13" "3-06" "4-02")

so you may need to do some string/number manipulation.

Yup! Here is an example that handles that sort of thing. MAPCAR LAMBDA WARNING - the following code can cause brain damage.

;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------
;;; ParseNumbs - returns list of integers parsed out of an input
;;;              string. Quite handy for date parsing and when
;;;              working with plan set sheet references.
;;;
(defun ParseNumbs (S / C Buf Res)
  (setq Buf "")
  (while (> (strlen S) 0)
    (setq C (substr S 1 1)
	  S (substr S 2))
    (if (<= (ascii "0") (ascii C) (ascii "9"))
      (setq Buf (strcat Buf C))
      (if (/= Buf "")
	(setq Res (cons Buf Res)
	      Buf ""))))
  (if (/= Buf "") (setq Res (cons Buf Res)))
  (mapcar 'atoi (reverse Res))
  )
;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------
;;; Sorts numbers like "01-02" by first number then second.
;;;
(defun SortWierdFormat (InList)
  (setq sList (mapcar 'ParseNumbs InList)
	sList (vl-sort-i sList '(lambda (A B)
				(cond
				  ((< (car A) (car B)) T)
				  ((> (car A) (car B)) nil)
				  ((< (cadr A) (cadr B)) T)
				  (T nil))))
	)
  (mapcar '(lambda (A) (nth A InList)) sList))
;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------
(defun C:TEST ()
  (setq A '("01-12" "04-01" "01-10" "03-02" "04-05"))
  (print A)
  (sortWierdFormat A)
  )
;;;----------------------------------------- Keep on programmin'

Bwuah ha ha ha ha ha !!!
(added Mad Scientist Laugh to code)

Hot Tip Harry (Bill Kramer)

[Cap'n Mac]

Originally Posted by gidtil

I cannot control the way that the list is created. I was hoping there was an existing routine that already did something like this.

I'd Need it to result like this:

(1-03 1-07 1-13 3-06 4-02)

Is there any way you could create the list elements as dotted pairs instead of the hyphenated string?
(cons n mm)(cons n mm), etc. instead of "n-mm" ?

Creating the list from lists lets us sort things in a much simpler sort of way. There are so many more tools available for list comparison, which are then more elegant in application (and less likely to make my brain hurt, as all string parsing functions seem to--BTDT, don't want the t-sheirt never no more).

Taking the list "apart" afterwards is not too terrible difficult, either.

Just a thought.

[gidtil]

Wow thanks guys for your input.

The output of the list I have no way to control. It extracts Tags from existing Block References and the Tags are #-## the numbers are not seperate the dash is not created by the routine. I have no problem with taking the list "apart" though. However Harry's Code seems to work beautifully so I don't think that its much of an issue.

I cannot believe I missed vl-sort an vl-sort-i. I use AidaCAD for my function reference and its in there. Thanks for the tip and the code!