How to Select Rows by Index in R (With Examples)

You can use the following methods to select rows from a data frame by index in R:

Method 1: Select One Row by Index

#select third row
df[3,]

Method 2: Select Multiple Rows by Index

#select third, fourth, and sixth rows
df[c(3, 4, 6),]

Method 3: Select Range of Rows by Index

#select rows 2 through 5
df[2:5,]

The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following data frame:

#create data frame
df <- data.frame(team=c('A', 'A', 'A', 'B', 'B', 'B'),
                 points=c(19, 14, 14, 29, 25, 30),
                 assists=c(4, 5, 5, 4, 12, 10),
                 rebounds=c(9, 7, 7, 6, 10, 11))

#view data frame
df

  team points assists rebounds
1    A     19       4        9
2    A     14       5        7
3    A     14       5        7
4    B     29       4        6
5    B     25      12       10
6    B     30      10       11

Example 1: Select One Row by Index

The following code shows how to select only the third row in the data frame:

#select third row
df[3, ]

  team points assists rebounds
3    A     14       5        7

Only the values from the third row are returned.

Example 2: Select Multiple Rows by Index

The following code shows how to select multiple rows by index in the data frame:

#select third, fourth, and sixth rows
df[c(3, 4, 6), ]

  team points assists rebounds
3    A     14       5        7
4    B     29       4        6
6    B     30      10       11

Only the values from the third, fourth, and sixth rows are returned.

Example 3: Select Range of Rows by Index

The following code shows how to select rows 2 through 5 in the data frame:

#select rows 2 through 5
df[2:5, ]

  team points assists rebounds
2    A     14       5        7
3    A     14       5        7
4    B     29       4        6
5    B     25      12       10

All values for rows 2 through 5 are returned.