Some students have trouble with the third programming assignment in R Programming because they struggle with sorting the data in the correct order. Here is an example of how to use two different R functions to sort the Motor Trend Cars data set from the datasets package.
> library(datasets)
> head(mtcars)
mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
Datsun 710 22.8 4 108 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2
Valiant 18.1 6 225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22 1 0 3 1
> library(plyr)
> #
> # use plyr::arrange() to sort the data frame by cyl and mpg
> #
>
> arrangedData <- arrange(mtcars,cyl,mpg)
> head(arrangedData)
mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
1 21.4 4 121.0 109 4.11 2.780 18.60 1 1 4 2
2 21.5 4 120.1 97 3.70 2.465 20.01 1 0 3 1
3 22.8 4 108.0 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
4 22.8 4 140.8 95 3.92 3.150 22.90 1 0 4 2
5 24.4 4 146.7 62 3.69 3.190 20.00 1 0 4 2
6 26.0 4 120.3 91 4.43 2.140 16.70 0 1 5 2
>
As you can see from the output, the data is sorted by cyl and then mpg. One of the productivity aids from plyr is the ability to reference columns in the data frame directly, without the need for the extract operator $, as in mtcars$mpg. Also note that because the car names were included as row names instead of a regular column, they were not copied to the arrangedData data frame.
Note that the dplyr package also provides an arrange() function.
Here is sample code that does the same thing using the base::order() function.
> #
> # use order() to do the same thing, sort mtcars by cyl and mpg
> #
> orderedData <- mtcars[order(mtcars$cyl,mtcars$mpg),]
> head(orderedData)
mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
Volvo 142E 21.4 4 121.0 109 4.11 2.780 18.60 1 1 4 2
Toyota Corona 21.5 4 120.1 97 3.70 2.465 20.01 1 0 3 1
Datsun 710 22.8 4 108.0 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
Merc 230 22.8 4 140.8 95 3.92 3.150 22.90 1 0 4 2
Merc 240D 24.4 4 146.7 62 3.69 3.190 20.00 1 0 4 2
Porsche 914-2 26.0 4 120.3 91 4.43 2.140 16.70 0 1 5 2
>
Notice that the order function must be used within the row dimension of the dataFrame[rows,columns] syntax, instead of a simple function call that operates on a data frame like the arrange() function.
To include the car names in the output from plyr::arrange() and make the results constant between the two functions, we would need to set the row names to a vector, column bind the vector back to the data frame, and set the rownames to NULL.
> library(datasets)
> library(plyr)
> #
> # move rownames to a column, because plyr::arrange() does not work with rownames
> #
> carName <- rownames(mtcars)
> mtcars <- cbind(carName,mtcars)
> rownames(mtcars) <- NULL
> head(mtcars)
carName mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
1 Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
2 Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
3 Datsun 710 22.8 4 108 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
4 Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
5 Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2
6 Valiant 18.1 6 225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22 1 0 3 1