title: R order list of tables by column and selecting top 100 rows
body: <p>I am working with a large list <code>results.list</code> that contains 22 tables (23544 obs of 6 variables). </p>
  
  <p>I want to sort each table by a specific column (FDR) False Discovery rate and select the first 100 rows. I can do this manually using my simple <strong>R</strong> commands.</p>
  
  <pre><code>attach(results.list$adult.OLFvsVTA)
  sort(FDR)
  detach(results.list$adult.OLFvsVTA)
  adult.OLFvsVTA100&lt;-adult.OLFvsVTA[1:100,]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I want to combine the top 100 rows from all 22 tables. I do not want the FDR values in the combined vector but rather I want to combine the top 100 rows by one column named (genes). I would like to automate this process using an apply function. Despite a series of attempts I can not get it to work. I created another vector called <code>r.names</code> that contains the names of all 22 tables in my list that I was planning to feed into my apply function. I read several apply help pages but I can't get it to work. Any help would be appreciated. </p>