sorting values stored in a local

[Ariel Linden]

Hi All,

Is there a way of sorting values stored in a local? For example:

local direction 1 0 2 4 3

should be transformed to:

local direction 0 1 2 3 4

Thanks in advance!

Ariel

[Andrea Discacciati]

local direction 1 0 2 4 3
local sorted_direction: list sort direction
di "`sorted_direction'"

See

help macrolists

[Ariel Linden]

Beautiful! Thank you Andrea!

[Mike Lacy]

Note that this approach will sort the values in the local as strings, not as numbers, so the preceding won't work if there are multiple digit numbers in the local:

local direction 11 101 49297 14 3
local sorted_direction: list sort direction
di "`sorted_direction'"
101 11 14 3 49297

Some use of Mata can solve this more generally, although perhaps there is an easier way than what I found:

local direction 11 101 49297 14 3
local sorted_direction: list sort direction
di "Bad: `sorted_direction'"
//
local direction = subinstr("`direction'", " ", "\ ", .)
mata: st_local("sorted_direction",  invtokens(strofreal(sort(`direction',1))'))
di "Good: `sorted_direction'"