sort a data matrix by all the values and keep the names

x <- data.frame(x1=c(1,7),x2=c(4,6),x3=c(8,2))
names <- t(matrix(rep(names(x),times=nrow(x)),nrow=ncol(x)))
m <- as.matrix(x)
ind <- order(m)
df <- data.frame(name=names[ind],value=m[ind])
df

From: zhihuali <lzhtom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [R] sort a data matrix by all the values and keep the names
To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Received: Tuesday, 23 September, 2008, 9:54 AM
Dear all,

If I have a data frame 
x<-data.frame(x1=c(1,7),x2=c(4,6),x3=c(8,2)):
   x1  x2  x3
   1     4  8
   7     6  2

I want to sort the whole data and get this:
x1 1
x3  2
x2  4
x2  6
x1   7
x3   8

 If I do sort(X), R reports:
Error in order(list(x1 = c(1, 7), x2 = c(4, 6), x3 = c(8,
2)), decreasing = FALSE) : 
  unimplemented type 'list' in
'orderVector1'

The only way I can sort all the data is by converting it to
a matrix:

sort(as.matrix(x))

[1] 1 2 4 6 7 8

But now I lost all the names attributes.

Is it possible to sort a data frame and keep all the names?

Thanks!

Zhihua Li