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How to Arrange Rows by Group Using dplyr (With Examples)

by Erma Khan

You can use the following methods to arrange rows by group in dplyr:

Method 1: Arrange Rows in Ascending Order by Group

library(dplyr)

#arrange rows in ascending order based on col2, grouped by col1
df %>%
  group_by(col1) %>%
  arrange(col2, .by_group=TRUE)

Method 2: Arrange Rows in Descending Order by Group

library(dplyr)

#arrange rows in descending order based on col2, grouped by col1
df %>%
  group_by(col1) %>%
  arrange(desc(col2), .by_group=TRUE)

Method 3: Arrange Rows by Multiple Groups

library(dplyr)

#arrange rows based on col3, grouped by col1 and col2
df %>%
  group_by(col1, col2) %>%
  arrange(col3, .by_group=TRUE)

This tutorial explains how to use each method in practice with the following data frame:

#create data frame
df frame(team=c('A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'B', 'B', 'B', 'B'),
                 position=c('G', 'G', 'F', 'F', 'G', 'G', 'F', 'F'),
                 points=c(10, 12, 3, 14, 22, 15, 17, 17))

#view data frame
df

  team position points
1    A        G     10
2    A        G     12
3    A        F      3
4    A        F     14
5    B        G     22
6    B        G     15
7    B        F     17
8    B        F     17

Example 1: Arrange Rows in Ascending Order by Group

The following code shows how to arrange the rows in ascending order based on points, grouped by the team column:

library(dplyr)

#arrange rows in ascending order by points, grouped by team
df %>%
  group_by(team) %>%
  arrange(points, .by_group=TRUE)

# A tibble: 8 x 3
# Groups:   team [2]
  team  position points
        
1 A     F             3
2 A     G            10
3 A     G            12
4 A     F            14
5 B     G            15
6 B     F            17
7 B     F            17
8 B     G            22

The rows are arranged in ascending order (smallest to largest) by points, grouped by the team column.

Example 2: Arrange Rows in Descending Order by Group

The following code shows how to arrange the rows in descending order based on points, grouped by the team column:

library(dplyr)

#arrange rows in descending order by points, grouped by team
df %>%
  group_by(team) %>%
  arrange(desc(points), .by_group=TRUE)

# A tibble: 8 x 3
# Groups:   team [2]
  team  position points
        
1 A     F            14
2 A     G            12
3 A     G            10
4 A     F             3
5 B     G            22
6 B     F            17
7 B     F            17
8 B     G            15

The rows are arranged in descending order (largest to smallest) by points, grouped by the team column.

Example 3: Arrange Rows by Multiple Groups

The following code shows how to arrange the rows in ascending order based on points, grouped by the team and position columns:

library(dplyr)

#arrange rows in descending order by points, grouped by team and position
df %>%
  group_by(team, position) %>%
  arrange(points, .by_group=TRUE)

# A tibble: 8 x 3
# Groups:   team, position [4]
  team  position points
        
1 A     F             3
2 A     F            14
3 A     G            10
4 A     G            12
5 B     F            17
6 B     F            17
7 B     G            15
8 B     G            22

The rows are arranged in ascending order (smallest to largest) by points, grouped by the team and position columns.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in R:

How to Filter for Unique Values Using dplyr
How to Filter by Multiple Conditions Using dplyr
How to Count Number of Occurrences in Columns in R

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