[R] Ordering the rows of a data frame

[Ista Zahn]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 9:41 AM, Stefano Sofia
<stefano.sofia at regione.marche.it> wrote:
>
> Dear R users,
> I have two files of seasonal rainfall data (more than 10,000 rows each); here the first 8 rows of each file are reported.
>
> Code_Raingouge,Y_init,M_init,D_init,h_init,m_init,Y_fin,M_fin,D_fin,h_fin,m_fin,Rainfall,N_Values,Quality_Level,Code_Station
> 2000,1952,12,1,0,0,1953,3,1,0,0,307.20,90,100.0,1510
> 2000,1953,3,1,0,0,1953,6,1,0,0,153.60,92,100.0,1510
> 2000,1953,6,1,0,0,1953,9,1,0,0,181.00,92,100.0,1510
> 2000,1953,9,1,0,0,1953,12,1,0,0,202.40,91,100.0,1510
> 2000,1953,12,1,0,0,1954,3,1,0,0,153.80,90,100.0,1510
> 2000,1954,3,1,0,0,1954,6,1,0,0,286.20,92,100.0,1510
> 2000,1954,6,1,0,0,1954,9,1,0,0,142.80,92,100.0,1510
> 2000,1954,9,1,0,0,1954,12,1,0,0,186.60,91,100.0,1510
> ...
>
> Code_Raingouge,Y_init,M_init,D_init,h_init,m_init,Y_fin,M_fin,D_fin,h_fin,m_fin,Rainfall,N_Values,Quality_Level,Code_Station
> 1056,2004,12,1,0,0,2005,3,1,0,0,93.60,2833,32.8,15
> 1056,2005,3,1,0,0,2005,6,1,0,0,149.80,4406,49.9,15
> 1056,2005,6,1,0,0,2005,9,1,0,0,52.80,1440,16.3,15
> 1056,2005,9,1,0,0,2005,12,1,0,0,191.80,1201,13.7,15
> 1056,2005,12,1,0,0,2006,3,1,0,0,26.40,336,3.9,15
> 1056,2006,12,1,0,0,2007,3,1,0,0,59.00,3604,41.7,15
> 1056,2007,3,1,0,0,2007,6,1,0,0,181.16,4414,50.0,15
> 1056,2007,6,1,0,0,2007,9,1,0,0,96.00,7337,83.1,15
> ...
>
> I have to load them as data frames, to merge them and sort them by (Y_init,M_init,D_init,Code_Raingouge).
>
> I wrote a short function where I first load the two files as data frames
>
> df_1 <- read.csv(file="prec_all_19521201_19821201.csv", sep=",")
> df_2 <- read.csv(file="prec_all_19821201_20111201.csv", sep=",")
>
> then I merge them by
>
> df_final <- merge(df_1, df_2, all=TRUE)
>
> and finally I try to order df_final through
>
> df_final <- df_final[order(Y_init, M_init, D_init, Code_Raingouge), ]

You probably need

df_final <- df_final[order(df_final$Y_init, df_final$M_init,
df_final$D_init, df_final$Code_Raingouge), ]

or

df_final <- df_final[with(df_final, order(Y_init, M_init, D_init,
Code_Raingouge)), ]

>
> but this returns only the first row.

That is strange; do you have copies of Y_init, M_init etc. in your workspace?

>
> I read the manual carefully and I saw some examples, but I have not been able to do this simple task.

I can see how the data.frame sorting examples in  ?order would lead to
this confusion, as they are limited to the special case where the
variables you want to sort by are in the workspace rather than (as is
more often the case) variables in the data.frame itself.

> I spent quite a long time and now I decided to ask the list.
> Could please somebody help me to show me where the mistake is?
>
> Thank you
> Stefano
>
>
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