Chabot Denis wrote:> Dear R users,
>
> I need to reorder a dataframe using 3 variables for the determine the
> sorting order.
>
> When I create a simple dataframe to test the method, things work as I
> expected:
>
> a1 <- rep(1:10, each=8)
> a2 <- rep(rep(1:2, each=4), 10)
> a3 <- rep(c(1:4),20)
> (a <- data.frame(a1, a2, a3))
>
> for each combination of a1 and a2, a3 is increasing
>
> t <- order(a$a1, a$a2, rev(a$a3))
> b <- a[t,]
>
Using "rev(a$a3)" messes things up when the values of a3 aren't
identical in every (a1, a2) group. If you know a3 is numeric with no NA
or NaN values, you could use
t <- order(a$a1, a$a2, -a$a3)
to get the sort order reversed. If not, you need to do two sorts,
relying on the fact that order uses a stable sort:
t1 <- order(a$a3, decreasing=TRUE)
t2 <- with(a[t1,], order(a1, a2))
t <- t1[t2]
b <- a[t,]
It would be nice if the decreasing arg to order was allowed to be a
vector, with entries applied in the obvious way, so that
t <- with(a, order(a1, a2, a3, decreasing = c(FALSE, FALSE, TRUE)))
would work, but alas, it doesn't.
Duncan Murdoch> In this new dataframe, the 3rd variable is in decreasing order within
> each combination of a1 and a2, which is the desired result.
> As expected, this still works if the second variable never changes:
>
> e1 <- rep(1:10, each=8)
> e2 <- rep(2, 80)
> e3 <- rep(c(1:8),10)
> e <- data.frame(e1, e2, e3)
> t <- order(e$e1, e$e2, rev(e$e3))
> f <- e[t,]
>
> With my real data, I do not get the 3rd variable in inverse order for
> each combination of the first 2. Here I recreate the beginning of my
> dataframe for you to see what I mean:
>
> c1 <- c(rep(813,102), rep(826,48))
> c2 <- rep(2,150)
> c3 <- c(seq(1:102), seq(1,48))
> c <- data.frame(c1, c2, c3)
> t <- order(c$c1, c$c2, rev(c$c3))
> d <- c[t,]
>
> The dataframe d is properly ordered for c1==826, but not for c1==813,
> where c3 goes from 48 down to 1, and then from 102 down to 49,
> instead of going from 102 down to 1. All the variables are numeric,
> not factors.
>
> Any help/explanation will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Denis
> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.6.0 (2007-10-03)
> powerpc-apple-darwin8.10.1
>
> locale:
> fr_CA.UTF-8/fr_CA.UTF-8/fr_CA.UTF-8/C/fr_CA.UTF-8/fr_CA.UTF-8
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>