How to sort a vector in descending order in R

Two ways to sort a vector in descending order.

With base R

Use sort() with decreasing = TRUE:

x <- c(5, 2, 8, 1, 9)
sorted <- sort(x, decreasing = TRUE)
# [1] 9 8 5 2 1

Or use order():

sorted <- x[order(-x)]

With data.table

For large vectors, data.table is fast:

library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(value = c(5, 2, 8, 1, 9))
setorder(dt, -value)

See Also

• sort() — base R sorting function
• arrange() — dplyr sorting