sort(): This is a function that returns the passed vector in decreasing or increasing order:

> vector1 <- c(2,5,3,4,1)
> sort(vector1)
[1] 1 2 3 4 5

If the vector passed is of the character type, the function returns it in alphabetical order and if it is logical, it will first return the FALSE elements and then the TRUE elements:

> sort(c(T,T,F,F))
[1] FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE

order(): This returns the index number of the ordered elements according to their values:

> vector1 <- c(2,5,3,4,1)
> order(vector1)
[1] 5 1 3 4 2

In the preceding example, for the vector1 object, the function returns the fifth element first, then the first, then the third, and so on. For character or logical vectors, the criterion is the same as in sort():

> sort(vector1,decreasing=T)
[1] 5 4 3 2 1