[R] Sorting a data frame with values of different lengths

[William Armstrong]

Hi all,

I am attempting to run a script in which I permute my data and run a
Wilcoxon rank sum test on the data 1000 times and compare my original test
statistic to the permuted test statistics to more accurately estimate a
significance level for the trends I am observing.

In the process of doing this, I need to sort a data frame that measures 3 x
1001 based on the value of the test statistic (W).  I am trying to get the
data in ascending order based on W.  My data frame looks something like
this:

> W_table
   pds_gagehandles.i.  p     W
W                mibe  1   746
2                mibe  2 870.5
3                mibe  3   767
4                mibe  4  1066
5                mibe  5   885
6                mibe  6 931.5
7                mibe  7   765
8                mibe  8   930
9                mibe  9 696.5
10               mibe 10 711.5
11               mibe 11  1006

I am trying to sort it using the command: > W_table[order(W_table$W),],
which is spitting out:

   pds_gagehandles.i.  p     W
11               mibe 11  1006
4                mibe  4  1066
9                mibe  9 696.5
10               mibe 10 711.5
W                mibe  1   746
7                mibe  7   765
3                mibe  3   767
2                mibe  2 870.5
5                mibe  5   885
8                mibe  8   930
6                mibe  6 931.5

I want this data frame to have the values that are currently the first two
as the last two, i.e. I need it in ascending order.  I am thinking that I am
having this problem because W is different lengths and ?order states the
data should be "a sequence of numeric, complex, character or logical
vectors, all of the same length, or a classed R object".  Maybe because the
values over 1000 have an extra digit R is seeing them as '100' for some
reason? Does anyone know of another function I can use to accomplish this
task or a way to work around this error?

Thank you very much,

Billy

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