[R] Sorting Data Frames in R by multiple columns with a custom order

[arun]

Hi,

Not sure whether this helps:
dat1 <- as.data.frame(mat,stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
dat1$c4 <- factor(dat1$c4,levels=c("OF","ON"))
 dat1$c1 <- factor(dat1$c1,levels=c("US","UK","WW","BO","BR","CA"))
 dat1$c2 <- factor(dat1$c2, levels=c("P2","P3","P1"))
 dat1$c3 <- factor(dat1$c3, levels=c("S2","S1","S3"))
 dat1[with(dat1,order(c4,c1,c2,c3)),]

A.K.




Thank you guys for the help here and my apologies if this has been answered in the post's already somewhere which I just was not able to 
find. 

I am trying to sort a data frame by multiple 
columns.  Each column has different values of interest for which I am 
trying to sort.  I have been able to do this alphebetically in both 
ascending and decending order using the order function.  However, for 
the document I am trying to create it is crutcial that the order is not 
alphebetically.  In fact it is by a specific ordering, on each of the 
columns, which I need to specify. 

I could do this via a nasty convolution of creating sort order variables for each of the columns and then merging on to the data frame by the cols, then ordering on the new sort order cols, then 
remove them...however, I was hoping that there would be a nice and easy 
automated way to handle this in case the order changes at another time. 

so, here's an example 
c1 = c('CA', 'CA', 'CA', 'BR', 'BR', 'UK', 'UK', 'BO', 'BO', 'BO', 'WW', 'WW', 'WW', 'US', 'US') 
c2 = c('P3', 'P2', 'P1', 'P1', 'P2', 'P2', 'P1', 'P1', 'P3', 'P2', 'P1', 'P2', 'P3', 'P3', 'P2') 
c3 = c('S1', 'S1', 'S2', 'S2', 'S2', 'S1', 'S2', 'S1', 'S1', 'S1', 'S1', 'S2', 'S3', 'S1', 'S1') 
c4 = c('ON', 'ON', 'OF', 'ON', 'OF', 'OF', 'OF', 'ON', 'ON', 'ON', 'OF', 'ON', 'ON', 'ON', 'ON') 

mat = cbind(c4, c1, c2, c3) 

if we sort as usual we'd get 
"OF"	"BR"	"P2"	"S2" 
"OF"	"CA"	"P1"	"S2" 
"OF"	"UK"	"P1"	"S2" 
"OF"	"UK"	"P2"	"S1" 
"OF"	"WW"	"P1"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BO"	"P1"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BO"	"P2"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BO"	"P3"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BR"	"P1"	"S2" 
"ON"	"CA"	"P2"	"S1" 
"ON"	"CA"	"P3"	"S1" 
"ON"	"US"	"P2"	"S1" 
"ON"	"US"	"P3"	"S1" 
"ON"	"WW"	"P2"	"S2" 
"ON"	"WW"	"P3"	"S3" 


however I want OF in col 1 to come first...then in the col2 i want US, UK, WW, BO, BR, and then CA.  then col 3 we need P2, then P3, then P1, and finally in col 4 i need S2, then S1, and then finally S3.  As such 

"OF"	"UK"	"P2"	"S1" 
"OF"	"UK"	"P1"	"S2" 
"OF"	"WW"	"P1"	"S1" 
"OF"	"BR"	"P2"	"S2" 
"OF"	"CA"	"P1"	"S2" 
"ON"	"US"	"P2"	"S1" 
"ON"	"US"	"P3"	"S1" 
"ON"	"WW"	"P2"	"S2" 
"ON"	"WW"	"P3"	"S3" 
"ON"	"BO"	"P2"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BO"	"P3"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BO"	"P1"	"S1" 
"ON"	"BR"	"P1"	"S2" 
"ON"	"CA"	"P2"	"S1" 
"ON"	"CA"	"P3"	"S1" 

i've tried nesting orders in orders, the match 
function looks like it might work if it wasn't for the fact that in my 
actual data each col can have multiple records for each value and match 
only looks for the first matching case....that said, the sort order is 
unique. 

Furthermore, these are not the real data, just an example. 

anything might be able to get me further along the way than I am now. 

Thanks