Print Names of an Object with Optional Sorting

Prints the names of an object to the console, with an option to sort them. Supports custom separators and handles various edge cases.

Usage

cat_names(x, sort = FALSE, sep = "\n", na_rm = TRUE, prefix = NULL, ...)

Arguments

x

An R object with names attribute (e.g., vector, list, data frame).

sort

Logical. Whether to sort names using mixed alphanumeric sorting. Defaults to FALSE.

sep

Character. Separate names in output. Defaults to newline ("\n").

na_rm

Logical. Whether to removes NA values from names before printing. Defaults to TRUE.

prefix

Character. string to prepend to each name. Defaults to NULL.

...

Additional arguments passed to base::cat().

Value

Invisibly returns the vector of names (sorted if sort = TRUE).

Author

Ahmed El-Gabbas

Examples

# Basic usage
vec <- c(a1 = 1, b = 2, a2 = 3)
cat_names(vec)
#> a1
#> b
#> a2

# Sorted names
cat_names(vec, sort = TRUE)
#> a1
#> a2
#> b

# Custom separator and prefix
cat_names(vec, sep = ", ", prefix = "- ")
#> - a1, - b, - a2

# Handle NA names
vec_na <- c(a = 1, NA, c = 3)
cat_names(vec_na, na_rm = TRUE)
#> a
#> 
#> c
cat_names(vec_na, na_rm = TRUE, sort = TRUE)
#> 
#> a
#> c

# Example with data frames
cat_names(mtcars)
#> mpg
#> cyl
#> disp
#> hp
#> drat
#> wt
#> qsec
#> vs
#> am
#> gear
#> carb
cat_names(iris)
#> Sepal.Length
#> Sepal.Width
#> Petal.Length
#> Petal.Width
#> Species