Sorting in R

How do you sort one vector using another vector as a sort
key?  Sort of equivalent
to sorting rows of a spreadsheet using one of its columns as
key.  Here's a simple example:

name<-c("Joe","Sue","Mary")
age<-c(22, 57, 13)
zipcode<-(50854, 20617, 91234)

For brevity, I'd make these into a data frame:
 spsheet <- data.frame(name,age,zip)

If we sort the name vector in zipcode order we should get
mary, joe, sue

name(order(zip))
or
spsheet[order(zip),]

If we sort name in age order we should get sue, joe, mary

name(order(age))
or
spsheet[order(age),]

Having secondary keys to break ties would be nice, as would
the ability to sort (in this example)
all 3 vectors at once.

That's a bit harder,  I would sort first on the secondary column, then
the primary.  Or tertiary - secondary - primary.

 If primary is name, secondary age, tertiary zip:
spsheet <- spsheet[order(zip),]
spsheet <- spsheet[order(age),]
spsheet[order(name),]
 
  I hope someone has a better way.

Any help appreciated.
-- 
Art Salwin
salwin at mitretek.org
(202) 863-2985
(202) 863-2988 (fax)
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Jim Robison-Cox               ____________    
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