R help - Aug 2006 - ordering columns (longitudinal data in wide format)

Hi,

I am working on some longitudinal data in wide format and I am having a problem
ordering the data columns.  To expand, a subset of what I am working on is as
follows;
>s
   L.qol.0 L.qol.0.08 L.qol.0.17 L.qol.0.25 L.qol.0.5 L.qol.0.42 L.qol.0.34
1      83         86         89         92        91         87         90
>names(s)
[1] "L.qol.0"    "L.qol.0.08" "L.qol.0.17"
"L.qol.0.25" "L.qol.0.5"
[6] "L.qol.0.42" "L.qol.0.34"

# in this object s (not a vector), 'L.qol' is measured at time points 0,
0.08, 0.17, 0.25, 0.34, 0.42 and 0.5.  As you can see, however, the time points
are not in the correct order in object s.  Does anyone know how to order these
column names along with their corresponding measurements?  Clearly s[order(s)]
does not work since this just orders the corresponding measurements.

I would be extremely grateful for any help on this matter, it may be really
simple, but I have tried for ages.

Thank you,

Zoe

Assuming this data:

s <- structure(list(L.qol.0 = 83, L.qol.0.08 = 86, L.qol.0.17 = 89,
    L.qol.0.25 = 92, L.qol.0.5 = 91, L.qol.0.42 = 87, L.qol.0.34 = 90),
   .Names = c("L.qol.0", "L.qol.0.08",
"L.qol.0.17", "L.qol.0.25",
   "L.qol.0.5", "L.qol.0.42", "L.qol.0.34"),
   class = "data.frame", row.names = "1")

# we can sort it by column names like this:
s[,sort(names(s))]

# also note that mixed sort in gtools can sort by numeric
# value in mixed character/numeric names which gives the
# same result here but may not in different examples
library(gtools)
s[,mixedsort(names(s))]


On 8/2/06, z.dalton at lancaster.ac.uk <z.dalton at lancaster.ac.uk>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am working on some longitudinal data in wide format and I am having a
problem ordering the data columns.  To expand, a subset of what I am working on
is as follows;
>
> >s
>   L.qol.0 L.qol.0.08 L.qol.0.17 L.qol.0.25 L.qol.0.5 L.qol.0.42 L.qol.0.34
> 1      83         86         89         92        91         87         90
>
> >names(s)
> [1] "L.qol.0"    "L.qol.0.08" "L.qol.0.17"
"L.qol.0.25" "L.qol.0.5"
> [6] "L.qol.0.42" "L.qol.0.34"
>
> # in this object s (not a vector), 'L.qol' is measured at time
points 0, 0.08, 0.17, 0.25, 0.34, 0.42 and 0.5.  As you can see, however, the
time points are not in the correct order in object s.  Does anyone know how to
order these column names along with their corresponding measurements?  Clearly
s[order(s)] does not work since this just orders the corresponding measurements.
>
> I would be extremely grateful for any help on this matter, it may be really
simple, but I have tried for ages.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Zoe
>
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