Sort a data frame in R by multiple columns at the same time

Question

So, I have a large data frame(7000 rows) which is arranged like so:

head(mx) Stem Progenitor Astrocyte Neuron genename ENSRNOG00000000007 0.0517698 0.700234 0.11753300 4.591050 Gad1 ENSRNOG00000000010 0.0536043 0.471518 0.00741803 2.280760 Cbln1 ENSRNOG00000000012 0.0163017 0.285178 1.89533000 0.268405 Tcf15 ENSRNOG00000000024 2.7904200 0.703727 13.96940000 4.944650 HEBP1 ENSRNOG00000000028 2.5059900 2.563040 4.83952000 0.840013 Nde1 ENSRNOG00000000029 1.6204500 2.928300 15.58360000 1.750350 Myh11

I need to sort this data frame such that it is ordered from high to low by any value in the first four columns. So, for the example, the sorting for these 5 lines would be:

 Stem Progenitor Astrocyte Neuron genename ENSRNOG00000000029 1.6204500 2.928300 15.58360000 1.750350 Myh11 ENSRNOG00000000024 2.7904200 0.703727 13.96940000 4.944650 HEBP1 ENSRNOG00000000028 2.5059900 2.563040 4.83952000 0.840013 Nde1 ENSRNOG00000000007 0.0517698 0.700234 0.11753300 4.591050 Gad1 ENSRNOG00000000010 0.0536043 0.471518 0.00741803 2.280760 Cbln1 ENSRNOG00000000012 0.0163017 0.285178 1.89533000 0.268405 Tcf15

I know I can sort the data frame by one column at a time with a command such as:

mx <- mx[with(mx, order(-Stem, -Progenitor, -Astrocyte, -Neuron)),]

But, this would in the above example put Tcf15 above Gad1 and Cbln1. Is there a way to sort by the highest value in any of the four columns? I could write some script to do so by manually iterate through the data frame and sort into a new data frame using Rbind, but that's terribly inefficient and I'm sure there's a better way to do it.

possible duplicate of How to sort a dataframe by column(s) in R — Thomas
– Thomas, Commented Aug 2, 2014 at 23:56

Joshua Ulrich · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-02 23:55:19Z

6

Order the maximum of the four columns using pmax

mx <- mx[with(mx, order(-pmax(Stem, Progenitor, Astrocyte, Neuron))),]

answered Aug 2, 2014 at 23:55

Joshua Ulrich

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Joshua Ulrich Over a year ago

@Reed: I didn't read his data into an R session. My answer was from memory and untested.

hadley · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-03 13:48:59Z

With dplyr, this is:

library(dplyr) arrange(ms, desc(pmax(Stem, Progenitor, Astrocyte, Neuron)))

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