[Rd] reorder [stats] and reorder.factor [lattice]

[Warnes, Gregory R]

I also have a reorder.factor defined in the gregmisc package.  It has a
slighly different behavior.
It allows 
	- sorting the factor level names via 'mixedsort', which sorts mixed 
        numeric/character intelligently so that 'Cis 10mg' comes after 
        'Cis 5mg' and before 'Taxol 10mg'
	- reordering by a numeric order 
	- reordering by named factor labels.

Combining it with the version provided by Deepayan we get:

reorder.factor <- function(x,
                           order,
                           X,
                           FUN,
                           sort=mixedsort,
                           make.ordered = is.ordered(x),
                           ... )
  {
    constructor <- if (make.ordered) ordered else factor

    if (!missing(order))
      {
        if (is.numeric(order))
          order = levels(x)[order]
        else
          order = order
      }
    else if (!missing(FUN))
      order = names(sort(tapply(X, x, FUN, ...)))
    else
      order = sort(levels(x))

    constructor( x, levels=order)

  }

Yielding:

>    # Create a 4 level example factor
>    trt <- factor( sample( c("PLACEBO","300 MG", "600 MG", "1200 MG"),
+                   100, replace=TRUE ) )
>    summary(trt)
1200 MG  300 MG  600 MG PLACEBO 
     18      24      30      28 
>    # Note that the levels are not in a meaningful order.
> 
> 
>    # Change the order to something useful
>    # default "mixedsort" ordering
>    trt2 <- reorder(trt)
>    summary(trt2)
 300 MG  600 MG 1200 MG PLACEBO 
     24      30      18      28 
>    # using indexes:
>    trt3 <- reorder(trt, c(4,2,3,1))
>    summary(trt3)
PLACEBO  300 MG  600 MG 1200 MG 
     28      24      30      18 
>    # using label names:
>    trt4 <- reorder(trt, c("PLACEBO","300 MG", "600 MG", "1200 MG") )
>    summary(trt4)
PLACEBO  300 MG  600 MG 1200 MG 
     28      24      30      18 
>    # using frequency
>    trt5 <- reorder(trt, X=as.numeric(trt), FUN=length)
>    summary(trt5)
1200 MG  300 MG PLACEBO  600 MG 
     18      24      28      30 
> 
> 
>    # drop out the '300 MG' level
>    trt6 <- reorder(trt, c("PLACEBO", "600 MG", "1200 MG") )
>    summary(trt6)
PLACEBO  600 MG 1200 MG    NA's 
     28      30      18      24 
> 


-Greg

(the 'mixedsort' function is available in the gregmisc package, or on
request)



> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-devel-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
> [mailto:r-devel-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch]On Behalf Of Deepayan Sarkar
> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 3:32 PM
> To: Prof Brian Ripley
> Cc: r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [Rd] reorder [stats] and reorder.factor [lattice]
> 
> 
> On Friday 27 August 2004 11:17, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> > On Fri, 27 Aug 2004, Deepayan Sarkar wrote:
> > > It was recently pointed out on the lists that the S-PLUS 
> Trellis suite
> > > has a function called reorder.factor that's useful in 
> getting useful
> > > ordering of factors for graphs. I happily went ahead and 
> implemented it,
> > > but it turns out that R (not S-PLUS) has a generic called 
> reorder (with a
> > > method for "dendrogram"). Naturally, this causes R to 
> think I'm defining
> > > a method for "factor", and gives a warning during check because of
> > > mismatching argument names.
> > >
> > > Any suggestions as to what I should do? Retaining S 
> compatibility doesn't
> > > seem to be an option. I could make a reorder method for 
> "factor" (which
> > > sounds like a good option to me), or rename it to something like
> > > reorderFactor.
> >
> > I am pretty sure you don't want to copy the Trellis call, which is
> >
> > function(Factor, X, Function = mean, ...)
> >
> > and suggests it dates from the days when S3 lookup could 
> not distingush
> > functions from other objects by context, hence the 
> capitalization.  Even
> > then, it is inconsistent with tapply etc which use FUN.
> >
> > reorder.factor <- function(x, X, FUN=mean)
> >
> > looks about right.  Another problem though: in Trellis 
> reorder.factor
> > doesn't just reorder the factor, it makes it an ordered 
> factor.  I don't
> > really see why, especially as the modelling functions 
> assume that ordered
> > means equally spaced.  If this is to be used more generally 
> (as Kjetil
> > Halvorsen suggests) then it should record the scores used to do the
> > ordering in an attribute.
> 
> Well, the ordered factor issue had come up before, and I 
> currently define this 
> as
> 
> 
> which is different from the S-PLUS version in 2 ways: 
> 
> 1. for (unordered) factors, it changes the levels, but keeps 
> it a factor
> 
> 2. it works for non-factors as well (which is moot if it's 
> going to be 
>    a factor method)
> 
> 
> Implementation details aside, this seems to me like a good 
> candidate for stats 
> (although it'll probably be used very little). lattice 
> functions (will) have 
> an alternative way of determining panel order based on panel 
> contents, which 
> makes more sense to me in the plotting context.
> 
> Deepayan
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 


LEGAL NOTICE\ Unless expressly stated otherwise, this messag...{{dropped}}