Getting the top values by group

Pretty easy with data.table too...

library(data.table)
setorder(setDT(d), -x)[, head(.SD, 5), keyby = grp]

Or

setorder(setDT(d), grp, -x)[, head(.SD, 5), by = grp]

Or (Should be faster for big data set because avoiding calling .SD for each group)

setorder(setDT(d), grp, -x)[, indx := seq_len(.N), by = grp][indx <= 5]

---

Edit: Here's how dplyr compares to data.table (if anyone's interested)

set.seed(123)
d <- data.frame(
  x   = runif(1e6),
  grp = sample(1e4, 1e6, TRUE))

library(dplyr)
library(microbenchmark)
library(data.table)
dd <- copy(d)

microbenchmark(
  top_n = {d %>%
             group_by(grp) %>%
             top_n(n = 5, wt = x)},
  dohead = {d %>%
              arrange_(~ desc(x)) %>%
              group_by_(~ grp) %>%
              do(head(., n = 5))},
  slice = {d %>%
             arrange_(~ desc(x)) %>%
             group_by_(~ grp) %>%
             slice(1:5)},
  filter = {d %>% 
              arrange(desc(x)) %>%
              group_by(grp) %>%
              filter(row_number() <= 5L)},
  data.table1 = setorder(setDT(dd), -x)[, head(.SD, 5L), keyby = grp],
  data.table2 = setorder(setDT(dd), grp, -x)[, head(.SD, 5L), grp],
  data.table3 = setorder(setDT(dd), grp, -x)[, indx := seq_len(.N), grp][indx <= 5L],
  times = 10,
  unit = "relative"
)


#        expr        min         lq      mean     median        uq       max neval
#       top_n  24.246401  24.492972 16.300391  24.441351 11.749050  7.644748    10
#      dohead 122.891381 120.329722 77.763843 115.621635 54.996588 34.114738    10
#       slice  27.365711  26.839443 17.714303  26.433924 12.628934  7.899619    10
#      filter  27.755171  27.225461 17.936295  26.363739 12.935709  7.969806    10
# data.table1  13.753046  16.631143 10.775278  16.330942  8.359951  5.077140    10
# data.table2  12.047111  11.944557  7.862302  11.653385  5.509432  3.642733    10
# data.table3   1.000000   1.000000  1.000000   1.000000  1.000000  1.000000    10

---

Adding a marginally faster data.table solution:

set.seed(123L)
d <- data.frame(
    x   = runif(1e8),
    grp = sample(1e4, 1e8, TRUE))
setDT(d)
setorder(d, grp, -x)
dd <- copy(d)

library(microbenchmark)
microbenchmark(
    data.table3 = d[, indx := seq_len(.N), grp][indx <= 5L],
    data.table4 = dd[dd[, .I[seq_len(.N) <= 5L], grp]$V1],
    times = 10L
)

timing output:

Unit: milliseconds
        expr      min       lq     mean   median        uq      max neval
 data.table3 826.2148 865.6334 950.1380 902.1689 1006.1237 1260.129    10
 data.table4 729.3229 783.7000 859.2084 823.1635  966.8239 1014.397    10

From dplyr 1.0.0, "slice_min() and slice_max() select the rows with the minimum or maximum values of a variable, taking over from the confusing top_n()."

d %>% group_by(grp) %>% slice_max(order_by = x, n = 5)
# # A tibble: 15 x 2
# # Groups:   grp [3]
#     x grp  
# <dbl> <fct>
#  1 0.994 1    
#  2 0.957 1    
#  3 0.955 1    
#  4 0.940 1    
#  5 0.900 1    
#  6 0.963 2    
#  7 0.902 2    
#  8 0.895 2    
#  9 0.858 2    
# 10 0.799 2    
# 11 0.985 3    
# 12 0.893 3    
# 13 0.886 3    
# 14 0.815 3    
# 15 0.812 3

---

Pre-dplyr 1.0.0 using top_n:

From ?top_n, about the wt argument:

The variable to use for ordering [...] defaults to the last variable in the tbl".

The last variable in your data set is "grp", which is not the variable you wish to rank, and which is why your top_n attempt "returns the whole of d". Thus, if you wish to rank by "x" in your data set, you need to specify wt = x.

d %>%
  group_by(grp) %>%
  top_n(n = 5, wt = x)

---

Data:

set.seed(123)
d <- data.frame(
  x = runif(90),
  grp = gl(3, 30))