How would I determine the systematic name of $\ce{(CH3)2CHCH2CHClCH3}$?
First of all, how do we determine which side we number the carbon atoms from? It has an alkyl group ($\ce{CH3}$) and a functional group ($\ce{Cl}$). I got lucky by going from right to left so I wrote 2-chloro-4-methylpentane but why couldn't we also label this as 4-chloro-2-methylpentane?
Do we take functional groups in preference to alkyl groups when naming them?