command ls with pattern in a function is not working in R

Question

I am trying following function:

srch = function(srchstr){
    print(ls(pattern=srchstr))
}

While following works:

ls(pattern='ddf')
[1] "ddf"         

Calling the function produces following output:

srch('ddf')
character(0)

I tried following methods:

ss = srch('ddf')
character(0)

ss
character(0)

print(ss)
character(0)

unlist(ss)
character(0)

sapply(ss, print)
named list()

sapply(ss, cat)
named list()

cat(ss)

'cat(ss)' simply gives no output!

Why is this happening & how can this be corrected?

Answer 1

Try to look in the .GlobalEnv:

srch = function(srchstr){
    print(ls(pattern=srchstr, envir = .GlobalEnv))
}

edit joran was faster...