smartrank {rank}

Rank a vector based on either alphabetical or frequency order

Description

This function acts as a drop-in replacement for the base rank() function with the added option to:

1. Rank categorical factors based on frequency instead of alphabetically

2. Rank in descending or ascending order

Usage

smartrank(
  x,
  sort_by = c("alphabetical", "frequency"),
  desc = FALSE,
  ties.method = "average",
  na.last = TRUE,
  verbose = TRUE
)

Arguments

x

A numeric, character, or factor vector

sort_by

Sort ranking either by "alphabetical" or "frequency" . Default is "alphabetical"

desc

A logical indicating whether the ranking should be in descending ( TRUE ) or ascending ( FALSE ) order. When input is numeric, ranking is always based on numeric order.

ties.method

a character string specifying how ties are treated, see ‘Details’; can be abbreviated.

na.last

a logical or character string controlling the treatment of NAs. If TRUE, missing values in the data are put last; if FALSE, they are put first; if NA, they are removed; if "keep" they are kept with rank NA.

verbose

verbose (flag)

Value

The ranked vector

Note

When sort_by = "frequency", ties based on frequency are broken by alphabetical order of the terms

When sort_by = "frequency" and input is character, ties.method is ignored. each distinct element level gets its own rank, and each rank is 1 unit away from the next element, irrespective of how many duplicates

Examples

## CATEGORICAL INPUT -----------------------
fruits <- c("Apple", "Orange", "Apple", "Pear", "Orange")

# rank alphabetically
smartrank(fruits)
#> [1] 1.5 3.5 1.5 5.0 3.5

# rank based on frequency
smartrank(fruits, sort_by = "frequency")
#> smartrank: Sorting a categorical variable by frequency: ignoring ties.method
#> [1] 2 3 2 1 3

# rank based on descending order of frequency
smartrank(fruits,sort_by = "frequency", desc = TRUE)
#> smartrank: Sorting a categorical variable by frequency: ignoring ties.method
#> [1] 1 2 1 3 2


## NUMERICAL INPUT -----------------------

# rank numerically
smartrank(c(1, 3, 2))
#> [1] 1 3 2

# rank numerically based on descending order
smartrank(c(1, 3, 2), desc = TRUE)
#> [1] 3 1 2

# always rank numerically, irrespective of sort_by
smartrank(c(1, 3, 2), sort_by = "frequency")
#> smartrank: Sorting a numeric variable. Ignoring `sort_by` and sorting numerically
#> [1] 1 3 2