[R] order() not producing results as I expect

[peter dalgaard]

I'd wager that the problem lies in the expectations. Karl: Read up on what order() actually does; it is not what I think you think it does. 

Perhaps 

str.dat[match(gen.names, str.dat$ind.names),]

or

rownames(str.dat) <- str.dat$ind.names
str.dat[gen.names,]

was intended? (Both untested, some adjustment may be required.)

-pd

On Oct 10, 2013, at 20:56 , Duncan Murdoch wrote:

> On 10/10/2013 12:00 PM, Karl Fetter wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I'm using R version 3.0.0 on a mac. I'm having trouble getting order to
>> behave as I expect it should. I'm trying to sort a data.frame according to
>> a character vector. I'm able to sort the data.frame, but it retruns an
>> unexpected result. I have no idea where the order that is being produced
>> comes from.
> 
> It comes from gen.names, which is not a column of your dataset.  I think you'll have to give us something reproducible before we can help you.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
>> 
>> Any ideas on how to properly order a data frame by a character vector?
>> 
>> Here is the current order of the data frame (called str.dat):
>> 
>> > head(str.dat)
>>    str.names POPINFO POPFLAG LOCDATA Loc1 Loc2 Loc3 ind.names
>> 1 alba1.pop3       3       0       1   12    3    2     alba1
>> 2 alba2.pop3       3       0       1    3    3    2     alba2
>> 3 alch1.pop4       4       0       2    2    3    2     alch1
>> 4 alch2.pop4       4       0       2    2    3    2     alch2
>> 5 alco1.pop4       4       0       3    3    3    2     alco1
>> 6 alco2.pop4       4       0       3    3    3    2     alco2
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Here's the order I expect it to be in when I use order:
>> 
>> > head(data.frame(gen.names))
>>   gen.names
>> 1     magv1
>> 2     magv2
>> 3     magv3
>> 4     magv4
>> 5       lc1
>> 6       lc2
>> 
>> 
>> Here's the order I'm getting:
>> 
>> > head(str.dat[order(gen.names),])
>>      str.names POPINFO POPFLAG LOCDATA Loc1 Loc2 Loc3 ind.names
>> 111 ncle2.pop5       5       0      39    3    3    2     ncle2
>> 112 ncle3.pop5       5       0      39    2    2    2     ncle3
>> 146 wvma1.pop8       8       0      57    3    3    2     wvma1
>> 145 wvfa2.pop8       8       0      56    3    3    2     wvfa2
>> 55  flse6.pop2       2       0      19    2    5    4     flse6
>> 54  flse5.pop2       2       0      19    2    5    4     flse5
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Many thanks,
>> 
>> Karl
>> 
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com