Sort or Order Rank in R » Data Science Tutorials

Sort or Order Rank in R with sort(), order(), and rank() Functions. We will learn how to sort data in R using the sort(), order(), and rank() functions.

These functions are essential for data manipulation and analysis in R.

Example 1: Sorting Vectors

Let’s create an example vector and apply the sort(), order(), and rank() functions to it.

x <- c(4, -10, 8, 0)
x

# Sort the vector
sort(x)
# [1] -10   0   4   8

# Order the vector
order(x)
# [1] 2 4 1 3

# Rank the vector
rank(x)
# [1] 3 1 4 2

Example 2: Ordering Data Frame Rows

Let’s create an example data frame and order its rows by one of its columns.

my_data <- data.frame(x, y = LETTERS[1:4])
my_data

# Order the data frame by column x
my_data[order(my_data$x), ]
#    x y
# 2 -10 B
# 4   0 D
# 1   4 A
# 3   8 C

Example 3: Sorting Lists

Let’s create an example list and sort it by its names.

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my_list <- list(B = 1:5, C = 6:10, A = LETTERS[15:19])
my_list

# Sort the list alphabetically
my_list[order(names(my_list))]
# $A
# [1] "O" "P" "Q" "R" "S"
# 
# $B
# [1] 1 2 3 4 5
# 
# $C
# [1] 6 7 8 9 10

Example 4: Sorting Descendingly

Let’s sort the same vector in descending order using the sort() and order() functions.

sort(x, decreasing = TRUE)
# [1] 8   4   0 -10

order(x, decreasing = TRUE)
# [1] 3 1 4 2

Example 5: Sorting Data by Group

Let’s create an example data frame with multiple columns and sort it by group.

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my_data2 <- data.frame(value = c(6, 2, 4, 1, 8, 5), group1 = c("B", "A", "B", "C", "A", "B"), group2 = c("E", "E", "E", "D", "D", "D"))
my_data2

# Sort the data by group
my_data2[order(my_data2$group1, my_data2$group2), ]
#    value group1 group2
# 3      8      A      D
# 2      2      A      E
# 5      5      B      D
# 6      6      B      E
# 4      4      B      E
# 1      1      C      D

Example 6: Lesser Known Sorting Functions

Let’s explore some lesser known sorting functions in R.

is.unsorted(x)
# [1] TRUE

sort.list(x)
# [1] -10   -10   -10   -10   -10   -10   -10   -10   -10   -10

sort.int(x)
# [1] -10   -10   -10   -10   -10

xtfrm(x)
# [1] -10   -10   -10   -10

Sort or Order Rank in R, These examples demonstrate how to use the sort(), order(), and rank() functions in R to sort data in various ways.