This help topic is for R version 0.60. For the current version of R, try https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-patched/library/base/html/lapply.html
lapply {base}R Documentation

Apply a Function Over a List

Description

lapply returns a list of the same length as x. Each element of which is the result of applying fun to the corresponding element of x.

sapply is a “user-friendly” version of lapply also accepting vectors as x, and returning a vector or array with dimnames if appropriate.

Usage

lapply(x, fun, ...)
sapply(x, fun, ..., simplify = TRUE)

Arguments

x

list (or vector for sapply) to be used.

fun

the function to be applied. In the case of functions like +, %*%, etc., the function name must be quoted.

...

optional arguments to fun.

simplify

logical; should the result be simplified to a vector if possible?

See Also

apply, tapply.

Examples

x <- list(a = 1:10, beta = exp(-3:3), logic = c(T,F,F,T))
# compute the list mean for each list element
lapply(x,mean)
# median and quartiles for each list element
lapply(x, quantile, probs = 1:3/4)
sapply(x, quantile)
sapply(sapply(3:9, seq), fivenum)

[Package base version 0.60 ]