How to Sort a Table in R (With Examples)

There are two methods you can use to sort a table in R:

Method 1: Use Base R

#sort table in ascending order
my_table_sorted <- my_table[order(my_table)]

#sort table in descending order
my_table_sorted <- my_table[order(my_table, decreasing=TRUE)]

Method 2: Use dplyr

library(dplyr)

#sort table in ascending order
my_table_sorted<- my_table %>% as.data.frame() %>% arrange(Freq)

#sort table in descending order
my_table_sorted<- my_table %>% as.data.frame() %>% arrange(desc(Freq))

The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following table in R:

#create vector
data <- c(3, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 5, 5, 5, 5, 9, 12, 15, 15)

#create table
my_table <- table(data)

#view table
my_table

data
 3  5  7  8  9 12 15 
 1  4  2  3  1  1  2

Example 1: Sort Table Using Base R

We can use the following code to sort the values in the table in ascending order using the order() function from base R:

#sort table in ascending order
my_table_sorted <- my_table[order(my_table)]

#view sorted table
my_table_sorted

data
 3  9 12  7 15  8  5 
 1  1  1  2  2  3  4

And we can use the argument decreasing=True in the order() function to sort the values in the table in descending order:

#sort table in descending order
my_table_sorted <- my_table[order(my_table, decreasing=TRUE)]

#view sorted table
my_table_sorted

data
 5  8  7 15  3  9 12 
 4  3  2  2  1  1  1

Example 2: Sort Table Using dplyr

We can use the following code to sort the values in the table in ascending order using the arrange() function from the dplyr package:

library(dplyr)

#sort table in ascending order
my_table_sorted <- my_table %>% as.data.frame() %>% arrange(Freq)

#view sorted table
my_table_sorted

  data Freq
1    3    1
2    9    1
3   12    1
4    7    2
5   15    2
6    8    3
7    5    4

And we can use the desc() function to sort the values in the table in descending order:

library(dplyr)

#sort table in descending order
my_table_sorted <- my_table %>% as.data.frame() %>% arrange(desc(Freq))

#view sorted table
my_table_sorted

  data Freq
1    5    4
2    8    3
3    7    2
4   15    2
5    3    1
6    9    1
7   12    1

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the dplyr arrange() function here.