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Mastering R: 50 Different Ways to Sort Data

btd
7 min readDec 14, 2023

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Sorting data in R refers to the process of arranging the elements of a data structure, such as vectors, matrices, or data frames, in a specific order based on the values of certain variables. Sorting is a fundamental operation in data analysis and is crucial for tasks like finding the minimum or maximum values, identifying patterns, and preparing data for visualization or further analysis.

1. Sorting a numeric vector in ascending order:

vec <- c(3, 1, 5, 2, 4)
sorted_vec <- sort(vec)

2. Sorting a numeric vector in descending order:

vec <- c(3, 1, 5, 2, 4)
sorted_vec_desc <- sort(vec, decreasing = TRUE)

3. Sorting a character vector alphabetically:

char_vec <- c("banana", "apple", "orange", "grape")
sorted_char_vec <- sort(char_vec)

4. Sorting a factor vector in its natural order:

factor_vec <- factor(c("low", "medium", "high"))
sorted_factor_vec <- sort(factor_vec)

5. Sorting a data frame by a specific column in ascending order:

df <- data.frame(Name = c("Alice", "Bob"…

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