r - Applying sum / mean / etc. to a list -

in r why can apply mean / sum / etc. 1-d vector not 1-d list? how can perform such operations on list?

examples:

> myvector <- c(1,2,3,4) > myvector [1] 1 2 3 4 > sum(myvector) [1] 10  > mylist <- list(1,2,3,4) > mylist [[1]] [1] 1  [[2]] [1] 2  [[3]] [1] 3  [[4]] [1] 4 > sum(mylist) error in sum(mylist) : invalid 'type' (list) of argument 

i think best option use unlist reduce list vector, , call function. created following wrapper function this:

call_function_on_list = function(func, l) {     func(unlist(l)) } l = c(1,2,3,4) call_function_on_list(mean, l) # [1] 2.5 call_function_on_list(sd, l) # [1] 1.290994 call_function_on_list(sum, l) #  [1] 10