i made a little abstraction/script (?) with ofelia for sorting lists with symbols/strings alphabetically (i thought about a vanilla solution, but this seems much easier ): symbolsort.pd

function ofelia.sort(stringList);
table.sort(stringList, function(a, b) return a:upper() < b:upper() end);
return stringList;
end;
;
function ofelia.tros(stringList);
table.sort(stringList, function(b, a) return a:upper() < b:upper() end);
return stringList;
end;
;

i changed the name of the thread, so i do not need a new one for every little abstraction
of course i would also like to see lua abstractions from other people.
here is another one: luadateandtime.pd

function ofelia.bang();
return os.date("today is %A the %dth in %B %Y and the time is %X");
end;