How to add new column to an dataframe (to the front not end)?

Use cbind e.g.

df <- data.frame(b = runif(6), c = rnorm(6))
cbind(a = 0, df)

giving:

> cbind(a = 0, df)
  a         b          c
1 0 0.5437436 -0.1374967
2 0 0.5634469 -1.0777253
3 0 0.9018029 -0.8749269
4 0 0.1649184 -0.4720979
5 0 0.6992595  0.6219001
6 0 0.6907937 -1.7416569

df <- data.frame(b = c(1, 1, 1), c = c(2, 2, 2), d = c(3, 3, 3))
df
##   b c d
## 1 1 2 3
## 2 1 2 3
## 3 1 2 3

df <- data.frame(a = c(0, 0, 0), df)
df
##   a b c d
## 1 0 1 2 3
## 2 0 1 2 3
## 3 0 1 2 3

Add column "a"

> df["a"] <- 0
> df
  b c d a
1 1 2 3 0
2 1 2 3 0
3 1 2 3 0

Sort by column using colum name

> df <- df[c('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')]
> df
  a b c d
1 0 1 2 3
2 0 1 2 3
3 0 1 2 3

Or sort by column using index

> df <- df[colnames(df)[c(4,1:3)]]
> df
  a b c d
1 0 1 2 3
2 0 1 2 3
3 0 1 2 3