[R] Sorting Numeric and Character Data

[Thomas Hopper]

Hello,

I have what seems like an easy question to answer, but I'm struggling  
with it.

I have a set of categorical data that I am reading in, looking  
something like:

"category" "result"
"A" .234
"B" .123
"C" .564
"D" -.452
"E" .112
"F" -.106

I'd like to plot this twice on two separate dot charts, once with the  
data ordered in ascending order by the "category" (character) column;  
the other graph ordered in descending order by the "result" (numeric)  
column.

My trouble is this: if I read this in as a data frame, I can order it  
using something like data[order(d3$result),], but the "category"  
column seems to get converted to an integer data type, which then  
plots as numbers rather than letters on the dotchart(). If I read it  
in as separate vector columns using scan() and copy-and-paste, I  
don't know how to order both vectors together (such that "A" and .234  
remain together).

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom