Order data frame rows according to vector with specific order

Question

Is there an easier way to ensure that a data frame s rows are ordered according to a  target  vector as the one I implemented in the short example below   df  lt - data frame name   letters 1 4   value   c rep TRUE  2   rep FALSE  2     df     name value   1    a  TRUE   2    b  TRUE   3    c FALSE   4    d FALSE  target  lt - c  b    c    a    d     This somehow seems to be a bit too  complicated  to get the job done   idx  lt - sapply target  function x        which df name    x     df  lt - df idx   rownames df   lt - NULL  df      name value   1    b  TRUE   2    c FALSE   3    a  TRUE   4    d FALSE

User · Answer

We can adjust the factor levels based on target and use it in arrange

library(dplyr)
df %>% arrange(factor(name, levels = target))

#  name value
#1    b  TRUE
#2    c FALSE
#3    a  TRUE
#4    d FALSE

Or order it and use it in slice

df %>% slice(order(factor(name, levels = target)))

User · Answer

This method is a bit different  it provided me with a bit more flexibility than the previous answer  By making it into an ordered factor  you can use it nicely in arrange and such  I used reorder factor from the gdata package   df  lt - data frame name letters 1 4   value c rep TRUE  2   rep FALSE  2    target  lt - c  b    c    a    d    require gdata  df name  lt - reorder factor df name  new order target    Next  use the fact that it is now ordered   require dplyr  df   gt     arrange name      name value 1    b  TRUE 2    c FALSE 3    a  TRUE 4    d FALSE   If you want to go back to the original  alphabetic  ordering  just use as character   to get it back to the original state

User · Answer

Try match   df  lt - data frame name letters 1 4   value c rep TRUE  2   rep FALSE  2    target  lt - c  b    c    a    d   df match target  df name       name value 2    b  TRUE 3    c FALSE 1    a  TRUE 4    d FALSE   It will work as long as your target contains exactly the same elements as df name  and neither contain duplicate values   From  match   match returns a vector of the positions of  first  matches of its first argument  in its second    Therefore match finds the row numbers that matches target s elements  and then we return df in that order

User · Answer

Here s a similar system for the situation where you have a variable you want to sort by  initially  but then you want to sort by a secondary variable according to the order that this secondary variable first appears in the initial sort  In the function below  the initial sort variable is called order by and the secondary variable is called order along - as in  quot order by this variable along its initial order quot    library dplyr  warn conflicts   FALSE  df  lt - structure    list      msoa11hclnm   c         quot Bewbush quot    quot Tilgate quot    quot Felpham quot          quot Selsey quot    quot Brunswick quot    quot Ratton quot    quot Ore quot    quot Polegate quot    quot Mile Oak quot          quot Upperton quot    quot Arundel quot    quot Kemptown quot             lad20nm   c         quot Crawley quot    quot Crawley quot          quot Arun quot    quot Chichester quot    quot Brighton and Hove quot    quot Eastbourne quot    quot Hastings quot          quot Wealden quot    quot Brighton and Hove quot    quot Eastbourne quot    quot Arun quot    quot Brighton and Hove quot             shape area   c        1328821  3089180  3540014  9738033  448888  10152663  5517102        7036428  5656430  2653589  72832514  826151              row names   c NA  -12L   class    quot data frame quot     this does not give me what I need  df   gt      dplyr  arrange shape area  lad20nm    gt     msoa11hclnm           lad20nm shape area   gt  1    Brunswick Brighton and Hove     448888   gt  2     Kemptown Brighton and Hove     826151   gt  3      Bewbush           Crawley    1328821   gt  4     Upperton        Eastbourne    2653589   gt  5      Tilgate           Crawley    3089180   gt  6      Felpham              Arun    3540014   gt  7          Ore          Hastings    5517102   gt  8     Mile Oak Brighton and Hove    5656430   gt  9     Polegate           Wealden    7036428   gt  10      Selsey        Chichester    9738033   gt  11      Ratton        Eastbourne   10152663   gt  12     Arundel              Arun   72832514  Here   s a function  order along  lt - function df  order along  order by      cols  lt - colnames df       df  lt - df   gt       dplyr  arrange    order by          df   gt        dplyr  select    order along       gt        dplyr  distinct     gt        dplyr  full join df    gt        dplyr  select dplyr  all of cols         order along df  lad20nm  shape area    gt  Joining  by    quot lad20nm quot    gt     msoa11hclnm           lad20nm shape area   gt  1    Brunswick Brighton and Hove     448888   gt  2     Kemptown Brighton and Hove     826151   gt  3     Mile Oak Brighton and Hove    5656430   gt  4      Bewbush           Crawley    1328821   gt  5      Tilgate           Crawley    3089180   gt  6     Upperton        Eastbourne    2653589   gt  7       Ratton        Eastbourne   10152663   gt  8      Felpham              Arun    3540014   gt  9      Arundel              Arun   72832514   gt  10         Ore          Hastings    5517102   gt  11    Polegate           Wealden    7036428   gt  12      Selsey        Chichester    9738033  Created on 2021-01-12 by the reprex package  v0 3 0

User · Answer

If you don t want to use any libraries and you have reoccurrences in your data  you can use which with sapply as well   new order  lt - sapply target  function x df  which df name    x    df df  df         lt - df new order

User · Answer

I prefer to use     join  in dplyr whenever I need to match data  One possible try for this  left join data frame name target  df by  name     Note that the input for     join require tbls or data frame

[r] Order data frame rows according to vector with specific order

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