r - Order Bars in ggplot2 bar graph

Question

I am trying to make a bar graph where the largest bar would be nearest to the y axis and the shortest bar would be furthest. So this is kind of like the Table I have

    Name   Position
1   James  Goalkeeper
2   Frank  Goalkeeper
3   Jean   Defense
4   Steve  Defense
5   John   Defense
6   Tim    Striker

So I am trying to build a bar graph that would show the number of players according to position

p <- ggplot(theTable, aes(x = Position)) + geom_bar(binwidth = 1)

but the graph shows the goalkeeper bar first then the defense, and finally the striker one. I would want the graph to be ordered so that the defense bar is closest to the y axis, the goalkeeper one, and finally the striker one. Thanks

Answer 1

The key with ordering is to set the levels of the factor in the order you want. An ordered factor is not required; the extra information in an ordered factor isn't necessary and if these data are being used in any statistical model, the wrong parametrisation might result — polynomial contrasts aren't right for nominal data such as this.

## set the levels in order we want
theTable <- within(theTable, 
                   Position <- factor(Position, 
                                      levels=names(sort(table(Position), 
                                                        decreasing=TRUE))))
## plot
ggplot(theTable,aes(x=Position))+geom_bar(binwidth=1)

In the most general sense, we simply need to set the factor levels to be in the desired order. If left unspecified, the levels of a factor will be sorted alphabetically. You can also specify the level order within the call to factor as above, and other ways are possible as well.

theTable$Position <- factor(theTable$Position, levels = c(...))