Question

I have a factor variable which is comprised of times. When I attempt to turn it into a factor, R orders them in order from lowest to highest. Unforunately, this means that I end up with something like the following:

1:48:55  1:53:11  1:58:18  10:04:01 10:12:45 10:14:16 
10:20:24 10:21:59 10:23:11 10:23:40 10:30:40 10:34:13 
10:39:47 10:54:33 10:58:43 3:21:59  3:27:38  3:37:58  
3:49:00 4:20:42  4:30:52  4:37:39  4:40:08  4:40:55  
4:42:25  5:03:25  5:10:30  5:10:49  5:12:39  5:14:20

So instead of printing the times in order, times with 10:00 come before 7:00.

Is there a quick way to order the times by the actual time?

    time = c("1:48:55", "1:53:11", "1:58:18", "10:04:01", "10:12:45", "10:14:16", "10:20:24", "10:21:59", "10:23:11", "10:23:40", "10:30:40", "10:34:13", "10:39:47", "10:54:33", "10:58:43", "3:21:59", "3:27:38", "3:37:58", "3:49:00", "4:20:42", "4:30:52", "4:37:39",  "4:40:08", "4:40:55", "4:42:25", "5:03:25", "5:10:30", "5:10:49", "5:12:39", "5:14:20")

time = factor(time)

Answer 1

Try this:

library(chron)
sort(times(time))

or this if you want the sorted vector to remain a factor:

time[order(times(time))]