dataframe - Datewise grouping data in R -

i have sample dataframe:

date            item1    item2    item3 17-11-2016      2a        hp       cnf 12-11-2016      1a        bp       wl 13-11-2016      3a        sp       dl 14-11-2016      1a        hp       cnf 16-11-2016      2a        bp       cnf 10-11-2016      1a        sp       wl 17-11-2016      2a        hp       wl 

i want group data based on columns date, item1 , item2, particular column same value come same group.

expected output:

date            item1    item2    item3    grp 17-11-2016      2a        hp       cnf      1 17-11-2016      2a        hp       wl       1 12-11-2016      1a        bp       wl       2 13-11-2016      3a        sp       dl       3 14-11-2016      1a        hp       cnf      4 16-11-2016      2a        bp       cnf      5 10-11-2016      1a        sp       wl       6 

you can way:

df <- data.frame(date = c("17-11-2016","12-11-2016","13-11-2016","14-11-2016",                           "16-11-2016","10-11-2016","17-11-2016"),                  item1 = c("2a","1a","3a","1a","2a","1a","2a"),                  item2 = c("hp","bp","sp","hp","bp","sp","hp"),                  item3 = c("cnf","wl","dl","cnf","cnf","wl","wl")                  ) df$grp <- as.numeric(factor(paste(df$date,df$item1,df$item2))) df[order(df$grp),]         date item1 item2 item3 grp 6 10-11-2016    1a    sp    wl   1 2 12-11-2016    1a    bp    wl   2 3 13-11-2016    3a    sp    dl   3 4 14-11-2016    1a    hp   cnf   4 5 16-11-2016    2a    bp   cnf   5 7 17-11-2016    2a    hp    wl   6 1 17-11-2016    2a    hp   cnf   6