grouping: Grouping Permutation

Description

grouping returns a permutation which rearranges its first argument such that identical values are adjacent to each other. Also returned as attributes are the group-wise partitioning and the maximum group size.

Usage

grouping(…)

Arguments

…

a sequence of numeric, character or logical vectors, all of the same length, or a classed R object.

Value

An object of class "grouping", the representation of which should be considered experimental and subject to change. It is an integer vector with two attributes:

ends

subscripts in the result corresponding to the last member of each group

maxgrpn

the maximum group size

Details

The function partially sorts the elements so that identical values are adjacent. NA values come first. This is guaranteed to be stable, so ties are preserved, and if the data are already grouped/sorted, the grouping is unchanged. This is useful for aggregation and is particularly fast for character vectors. Under the covers, the "radix" method of order is used, and the same caveats apply, including reduced precision when comparing real values, restrictions on character encodings and lack of support for long vectors (those with \(2^{31}\) or more elements). Like order, for a classed R object the grouping is based on the result of xtfrm.

Examples

Run this code

(ii <- grouping(x <- c(1, 1, 3:1, 1:4, 3), y <- c(9, 9:1), z <- c(2, 1:9)))
## 6  5  2  1  7  4 10  8  3  9
rbind(x, y, z)[, ii]