R help - Nov 2012 - Coerce rownames to factor for ordering

Hi all, 
   I think this might be an easy one but I cannot think of a way to do this
other than what I am currently attempting.  I simply want to sort my data
frame's rownames by a defined vector so that the plots I generate from that
vector are in the desired order 

Consider the test data below:

#Create test data	
	DataToPlot.. <- data.frame("Location1" =
c(100,200),"Location2" c(200,400))
	#Name rowns
	rownames(DataToPlot..) <- c("Fall","Summer")
	#Attempt to coerce row names to factors 
	rownames(DataToPlot..) <- as.factor(rownames(DataToPlot..))
	#Attenmpt to sort rownames by defined vector
	rownames(DataToPlot..)<- reorder(as.factor(rownames(DataToPlot..)),
new.order =
c("Summer","Fall","Winter","Spring"))
		
The rownames do not reorder nor do they remain factors.  

Perhaps I can just sort these in the plot?  Not sure whats easier/possible?

barchart(DataToPlot..SeCl , horizontal = FALSE, ylab = "Average Weekday
Counts",
			group = colnames(DataToPlot..SeCl ), col Colors.[rownames(DataToPlot..SeCl)]
)
		

Thanks for any help.

Josh



--
View this message in context:
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Coerce-rownames-to-factor-for-ordering-tp4651330.html
Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Josh,

The code you submitted is not reproducible.  I don't have the following 
objects: 
        barchart, DataToPlot..SeCl, or Colors.
However, I think I can answer your questions, with some modified code ...

A rowname can't be a factor.  But you can still use a factor to sort the 
rows of your data for plotting.  For example:

DataToPlot.. <- data.frame(Location1=c(100, 200), Location2=c(200, 400))
seasons <- factor(c("Fall", "Summer"),
levels=c("Summer", "Fall",
"Winter", "Spring"))
rownames(DataToPlot..) <- as.character(seasons)
DataToPlot..
barplot(as.matrix(DataToPlot..)[order(seasons), ], ylab="Average Weekday 
Counts", col=c("blue", "orange")) 

Jean



LCOG1 <jroll@lcog.org> wrote on 11/29/2012 01:19:20
PM:
> 
> Hi all, 
>    I think this might be an easy one but I cannot think of a way to do 
this
> other than what I am currently attempting.  I simply want to sort my 
data
> frame's rownames by a defined vector so that the plots I generate from 
that
> vector are in the desired order 
> 
> Consider the test data below:
> 
> #Create test data 
>    DataToPlot.. <- data.frame("Location1" =
c(100,200),"Location2" > c(200,400))
>    #Name rowns
>    rownames(DataToPlot..) <- c("Fall","Summer")
>    #Attempt to coerce row names to factors 
>    rownames(DataToPlot..) <- as.factor(rownames(DataToPlot..))
>    #Attenmpt to sort rownames by defined vector
>    rownames(DataToPlot..)<- reorder(as.factor(rownames(DataToPlot..)),
> new.order =
c("Summer","Fall","Winter","Spring"))
> 
> The rownames do not reorder nor do they remain factors. 
> 
> Perhaps I can just sort these in the plot?  Not sure whats 
easier/possible?
> 
> barchart(DataToPlot..SeCl , horizontal = FALSE, ylab = "Average
Weekday
> Counts",
>          group = colnames(DataToPlot..SeCl ), col >
Colors.[rownames(DataToPlot..SeCl)] )
> 
> 
> Thanks for any help.
> 
> Josh
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]