sort()

sort(x, decreasing = FALSE, na.last = NA)

sort() arranges the elements of a vector in ascending order by default. It preserves the type of the input vector and handles NA values with the na.last parameter.

Syntax

sort(x, decreasing = FALSE, na.last = NA)

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
x	vector	—	A vector to sort
decreasing	logical	FALSE	If TRUE, sorts in descending order
na.last	logical or NA	NA	Controls placement of NA values

Examples

Basic usage

# Sort a numeric vector
numbers <- c(5, 2, 8, 1, 9)
sort(numbers)
# [1] 1 2 5 8 9

# Sort in descending order
sort(numbers, decreasing = TRUE)
# [1] 9 8 5 2 1

Handling NA values

# By default, NA goes to the end
vec <- c(3, NA, 1, 2, NA)
sort(vec)
# [1]  1  2  3 NA NA

# Put NA first
sort(vec, na.last = FALSE)
# [1] NA NA  1  2  3

# Remove NA values
sort(vec, na.last = NA)
# [1] 1 2 3

Sorting character vectors

names <- c("Charlie", "Alice", "Bob")
sort(names)
# [1] "Alice"   "Bob"     "Charlie"

Common Patterns

Sort a data frame by column

df <- data.frame(name = c("Charlie", "Alice", "Bob"), score = c(85, 92, 78))
df[order(df$score), ]
#     name score
# 3     Bob    78
# 1 Charlie    85
# 2   Alice    92

Get order indices

# Use order() to get indices instead of sorted values
x <- c("b", "a", "c")
order(x)
# [1] 2 1 3
x[order(x)]
# [1] "a" "b" "c"

See Also

• base::order
• dplyr::arrange