Is there an equivalent R function to Stata 'order' command?

Question

\'order\' in R seems like \'sort\' in Stata. Here\'s a dataset for example (only variable names listed):

v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7 v8 v9 v10 v11 v12 v13 v14 v15 v16 v17 v

Answer 1

You could write your own function that does this.

The following will give you the new order for your column names using similar syntax to stata

• where is a named list with 4 possibilities

  • list(last = T)
  • list(first = T)
  • list(before = x) where x is the variable name in question
  • list(after = x) where x is the variable name in question

• sorted = T will sort var_list lexicographically (a combination of alphabetic and sequential from the stata command

The function works on the names only, (once you pass a data.frame object as data, and returns a reordered list of names

eg

stata.order <- function(var_list, where, sorted = F, data) {
    all_names = names(data)
    # are all the variable names in
    check <- var_list %in% all_names
    if (any(!check)) {
        stop("Not all variables in var_list exist within  data")
    }
    if (names(where) == "before") {
        if (!(where %in% all_names)) {
            stop("before variable not in the data set")
        }
    }
    if (names(where) == "after") {
        if (!(where %in% all_names)) {
            stop("after variable not in the data set")
        }
    }

    if (sorted) {
        var_list <- sort(var_list)
    }
    where_in <- which(all_names %in% var_list)
    full_list <- seq_along(data)
    others <- full_list[-c(where_in)]

    .nwhere <- names(where)
    if (!(.nwhere %in% c("last", "first", "before", "after"))) {
        stop("where must be a list of a named element first, last, before or after")
    }

    do_what <- switch(names(where), last = length(others), first = 0, before = which(all_names[others] == 
        where) - 1, after = which(all_names[others] == where))

    new_order <- append(others, where_in, do_what)
    return(all_names[new_order])
}

tmp <- as.data.frame(matrix(1:100, ncol = 10))

stata.order(var_list = c("V2", "V5"), where = list(last = T), data = tmp)

##  [1] "V1"  "V3"  "V4"  "V6"  "V7"  "V8"  "V9"  "V10" "V2"  "V5" 

stata.order(var_list = c("V2", "V5"), where = list(first = T), data = tmp)

##  [1] "V2"  "V5"  "V1"  "V3"  "V4"  "V6"  "V7"  "V8"  "V9"  "V10"

stata.order(var_list = c("V2", "V5"), where = list(before = "V6"), data = tmp)

##  [1] "V1"  "V3"  "V4"  "V2"  "V5"  "V6"  "V7"  "V8"  "V9"  "V10"

stata.order(var_list = c("V2", "V5"), where = list(after = "V4"), data = tmp)

##  [1] "V1"  "V3"  "V4"  "V2"  "V5"  "V6"  "V7"  "V8"  "V9"  "V10"

# throws an error
stata.order(var_list = c("V2", "V5"), where = list(before = "v11"), data = tmp)

## Error: before variable not in the data set

if you want to do the reordering memory-efficiently (by reference, without copying) use data.table

DT <- data.table(tmp)
# sets by reference, no copying
setcolorder(DT, stata.order(var_list = c("V2", "V5"), where = list(after = "V4"), 
    data = DT))

DT

##     V1 V3 V4 V2 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10
##  1:  1 21 31 11 41 51 61 71 81  91
##  2:  2 22 32 12 42 52 62 72 82  92
##  3:  3 23 33 13 43 53 63 73 83  93
##  4:  4 24 34 14 44 54 64 74 84  94
##  5:  5 25 35 15 45 55 65 75 85  95
##  6:  6 26 36 16 46 56 66 76 86  96
##  7:  7 27 37 17 47 57 67 77 87  97
##  8:  8 28 38 18 48 58 68 78 88  98
##  9:  9 29 39 19 49 59 69 79 89  99
## 10: 10 30 40 20 50 60 70 80 90 100