[Rd] order(x, y, decreasing = c(FALSE, TRUE)) - how / elegantly?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 21 Aug 2008, Martin Maechler wrote:

> Duh!!
>
> The simplest, probably fastest and most elegant solution of
> course is
>
>       order(x, -y)

Only for numeric x.  As Martin knows, I am working on ideas for 'generic' 
order, and one is a xtfrm(z) function that creates an integer vector that 
sorts the same as z.  Then -xtrfm(z) would work.

>
> ......  if only I would have biked home earlier, today,...
> 	I'm sure I would have save much of my time....
>
> Martin
>
>>>>>> "MM" == Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>
>>>>>>     on Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:41:51 +0200 writes:
>
>    MM> I've found the need to compute a version of order(x,y)
>    MM> where I want the sort order for *increasing* x and
>    MM> *decresing* y ...
>
>    MM> something we could imagine could be provided in the
>    MM> future as
>
>    MM>   order(x,y, decreasing = c(FALSE, TRUE))
>
>    MM> i.e., using a 'vectorized' decreasing argument.  {No,
>    MM> I'm not volunteering right now!}
>
>    MM> I've found the following R-level solution and like to
>    MM> quiz you for more elegant / faster solutions {but I am
>    MM> not really interested in replacing order(x) by
>    MM> sort.list(x, method="quick") and similar things; one
>    MM> thing to consider *is* using an 'na.last = . '
>    MM> correctly, and I haven't had the need for that and so
>    MM> not bothered to "do it"}
>
>    MM> ## Here's a script with my version and a small example
>    MM> ## (if you want speed comparisons, use larger examples)
>    MM> :
>
>    MM> orderXuYd <- function(x,y) { ## Purpose: order(x,y): x
>    MM> up, y down ##
>    MM> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>    MM> ## Arguments: x,y: vectors of the same length ##
>    MM> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>    MM> ## Author: Martin Maechler, Date: 21 Aug 2008
>
>    MM>     ix <- order(x) xx <- x[ix] iy <- tapply(y[ix], xx,
>    MM> order, decreasing = TRUE) ## Note: 'SIMPLIFY',
>    MM> 'USE.NAMES', 'use.names' are just for efficiency:
>    MM> unlist(mapply(`[`, split(ix,xx), iy, SIMPLIFY = FALSE,
>    MM> USE.NAMES = FALSE), use.names = FALSE) }
>
>    MM> x <- c(1, 1, 2, 0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 2, 0, 2) y <- c(27, 21,
>    MM> 45, 11, 13, 58, 35, 74, 95, 16, 122) ii <-
>    MM> orderXuYd(x,y) ## yes, this is it : cbind(ii=ii,
>    MM> x=x[ii],y=y[ii])
>
>    MM> ------------------
>
>    MM> Yes, the real reason this goes to R-devel is that it
>    MM> might be neat to provide this (well, its generalization)
>    MM> via an enhanced order() function.
>
>    MM> Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich
>
>    MM> PS: I will be basically offline all day tomorrow, so
>    MM> don't expect my reactions to your ideas quickly
>
>    MM> ______________________________________________
>    MM> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>    MM> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595