order alphanumeric values keeping numeric values in proper order

Usage

mixedOrder(
  x,
  ...,
  blanksFirst = TRUE,
  na.last = NAlast,
  keepNegative = FALSE,
  keepInfinite = FALSE,
  keepDecimal = FALSE,
  ignore.case = TRUE,
  useCaseTiebreak = TRUE,
  honorFactor = FALSE,
  returnDebug = FALSE,
  returnType = c("order", "rank"),
  NAlast = TRUE,
  verbose = FALSE,
  debug = FALSE
)

Arguments

x

input vector

...

additional parameters are sent to mixedOrder().

blanksFirst

logical whether to order blank entries before entries containing a value.

na.last

logical whether to move NA entries to the end of the sort. When na.last=TRUE then NA values will always be last, even following blanks and infinite values. When na.last=FALSE then NA values will always be first, even before blanks and negative infinite values.

keepNegative

logical whether to keep '-' associated with adjacent numeric values, in order to sort them as negative values. Note that keepNegative=TRUE also forces keepDecimal=TRUE, and enables matching of scientific notation such as -1.23e-10 as a numeric value. When keepNegative=FALSE the dash "-" is treated as a common delimiter.

keepInfinite

logical whether to allow "Inf" in the input x to be considered a numeric infinite value. Note that "-Inf" is only treated as a negative infinite value when keepNegative=TRUE. Also note that "Inf" is only recognized as infinite when it appears between non-character delimiters, and not part of a larger character string like "Information". Be careful with keepInfinite=TRUE when sorting gene symbols, there are gene symbols like "Inf3" which should not be sorted as infinite. Lastly, infinite values are sorted at the end, notably after all character values which differs from some mixed sorting algorithms.

keepDecimal

logical whether to keep the decimal in numbers, sorting as a true number and not as a version number. By default keepDecimal=FALSE``, which means "v1.200" will be ordered after "v1.30", since it considers "1.200"effectively as1and200, and "1.30"effectively as1and30. When keepDecimal=TRUE, the numeric sort orders "v1.200"before"v1.30"`.

ignore.case

logical whether to ignore uppercase and lowercase characters when defining the sort order.

useCaseTiebreak

logical indicating whether to break ties when ignore.case=TRUE, using mixed case as a tiebreaker.

honorFactor

logical indicating whether to honor the order of levels if the input x is a factor. The default honorFactor=FALSE is to maintain consistent legacy behavior. The purpose of this function is to enable alphanumeric sorting, which is not the purpose of sorting by factor levels.

returnDebug

logical indicating whether to include additional debug info as attributes.

returnType

character string to define the return type:

"order": returns integer order, equivalent to order()
"rank": returns integer rank, equivalent to rank()

NAlast

logical DEPRECATED in favor of na.last for consistency with other base R functions.

verbose

logical whether to print verbose output.

debug

logical indicating whether to return intermediate data useful only for debugging purposes.

Value

integer vector of orders derived from x, or when returnType="rank" an integer vector of ranks allowing ties. The rank is therefore valid for use in chains, such as multiple columns of a data.frame.

Details

This function is a refactor of gtools mixedorder() which was the source of inspiration for this function, thanks to Gregory R. Warnes! This function was designed to improve the efficiency for large vectors, and to handle special cases slightly differently. It was driven by some need to sort gene symbols, and miRNA symbols in numeric order, for example:

test set:: miR-12,miR-1,miR-122,miR-1b,miR-1a,miR-2
sort:: miR-1,miR-12,miR-122,miR-1a,miR-1b,miR-2
gtools::mixedsort:: miR-122,miR-12,miR-2,miR-1,miR-1a,miR-1b
mixedSort:: miR-1,miR-1a,miR-1b,miR-2,miR-12,miR-122

This function does not by default consider negative numbers as negative, instead it treats '-' as a delimiter, unless keepNegative=TRUE.

When keepNegative=TRUE this function also recognizes scientific notation, for example "1.23e-2" will be treated as numeric 0.0123. Note that keepNegative=TRUE also forces keepDecimal=TRUE.

When keepDecimal=TRUE this function maintains numeric values that include one ".".

This function is the core of a family of mixedSort functions:

mixedSort(): Applies mixedOrder() to an input vector.
mixedSorts(): Applies mixedOrder() to a list of vectors, returning the list where each vector is independently sorted.
mixedSortDF(): Applies mixedOrder() to each column of a data.frame or comparable object, optionally specifying the order of columns used during the sort.

Extra thanks to Gregory R. Warnes for the gtools mixedorder() that proved to be so useful it ultimately inspired this function.

Examples

x <- c("miR-12","miR-1","miR-122","miR-1b", "miR-1a","miR-2");
mixedOrder(x);
#> [1] 2 5 4 6 1 3
x[mixedOrder(x)];
#> [1] "miR-1"   "miR-1a"  "miR-1b"  "miR-2"   "miR-12"  "miR-122"
mixedSort(x);
#> [1] "miR-1"   "miR-1a"  "miR-1b"  "miR-2"   "miR-12"  "miR-122"
order(x);
#> [1] 2 1 3 5 4 6
x[order(x)];
#> [1] "miR-1"   "miR-12"  "miR-122" "miR-1a"  "miR-1b"  "miR-2"  
sort(x);
#> [1] "miR-1"   "miR-12"  "miR-122" "miR-1a"  "miR-1b"  "miR-2"  

## Complex example including NA, blanks, and infinite "Inf"
x <- c("Inf",
   "+Inf12",
   NA,
   "-Inf14",
   "-",
   "---",
   "Jnf12",
   "Hnf12",
   "--",
   "Information");
## By default, strings are sorted as-is, "Hnf" before "Inf" before "Jnf"
## blanks are first, NA values are last
x[mixedOrder(x)];
#>  [1] "-"           "--"          "---"         "Hnf12"       "+Inf12"     
#>  [6] "-Inf14"      "Inf"         "Information" "Jnf12"       NA           

## blanks are last, but before NA values which are also last
x[mixedOrder(x, blanksFirst=FALSE)];
#>  [1] "Hnf12"       "+Inf12"      "-Inf14"      "Inf"         "Information"
#>  [6] "Jnf12"       "-"           "--"          "---"         NA           

## Recognize infinite, but not the negative sign
## Now infinite values are at the end, ordered by the number that follows.
x[mixedOrder(x, blanksFirst=FALSE, keepInfinite=TRUE)]
#>  [1] "Hnf12"       "Information" "Jnf12"       "+Inf12"      "-Inf14"     
#>  [6] "Inf"         "-"           "--"          "---"         NA           

## Now also recognize negative infinite values,
## which puts "-Inf14" at the very beginning.
x[mixedOrder(x, blanksFirst=FALSE, keepInfinite=TRUE, keepNegative=TRUE)]
#>  [1] "-Inf14"      "Hnf12"       "Information" "Jnf12"       "+Inf12"     
#>  [6] "Inf"         "-"           "--"          "---"         NA           

# test factor level order
factor1 <- factor(c("Cnot9", "Cnot8", "Cnot10"))
sort(factor1)
#> [1] Cnot10 Cnot8  Cnot9 
#> Levels: Cnot10 Cnot8 Cnot9
mixedSort(factor1)
#> [1] Cnot8  Cnot9  Cnot10
#> Levels: Cnot10 Cnot8 Cnot9
factor1[mixedOrder(factor1)]
#> [1] Cnot8  Cnot9  Cnot10
#> Levels: Cnot10 Cnot8 Cnot9
factor1[mixedOrder(factor1, honorFactor=TRUE)]
#> [1] Cnot10 Cnot8  Cnot9 
#> Levels: Cnot10 Cnot8 Cnot9