You can use one of the following three methods to split a data frame into several smaller data frames in R:
Method 1: Split Data Frame Manually Based on Row Values
#define first n rows to include in first data frame n <- 4 #split data frame into two smaller data frames df1 <- df[row.names(df) %in% 1:n, ] df2 <- df[row.names(df) %in% (n+1):nrow(df), ]
Method 2: Split Data Frame into n Equal-Sized Data Frames
#define number of data frames to split into n <- 3 #split data frame into n equal-sized data frames split(df, factor(sort(rank(row.names(df))%%n)))
Method 3: Split Data Frame Based on Column Value
#split data frame based on particular column value df1 <- df[df$column_name == 0, ] df2 <- df[df$column_name != 0, ]
The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following data frame:
#create data frame df <- data.frame(ID=c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), sales=c(7, 8, 8, 7, 9, 7, 8, 9, 3, 3, 14, 10), leads=c(0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0)) #view data frame df ID sales leads 1 1 7 0 2 2 8 0 3 3 8 1 4 4 7 1 5 5 9 0 6 6 7 1 7 7 8 1 8 8 9 0 9 9 3 1 10 10 3 0 11 11 14 1 12 12 10 0
Method 1: Split Data Frame Manually Based on Row Values
The following code shows how to split a data frame into two smaller data frames where the first one contains rows 1 through 4 and the second contains rows 5 through the last row:
#define row to split on
n <- 4
#split into two data frames
df1 <- df[row.names(df) %in% 1:n, ]
df2 <- df[row.names(df) %in% (n+1):nrow(df), ]
#view resulting data frames
df1
ID sales leads
1 1 7 0
2 2 8 0
3 3 8 1
4 4 7 1
df2
ID sales leads
5 5 9 0
6 6 7 1
7 7 8 1
8 8 9 0
9 9 3 1
10 10 3 0
11 11 14 1
12 12 10 0
Method 2: Split Data Frame into n Equal-Sized Data Frames
The following code shows how to split a data frame into n equal-sized data frames:
#define number of data frames to split into n <- 3 #split data frame into n equal-sized data frames split(df, factor(sort(rank(row.names(df))%%n))) $`0` ID sales leads 1 1 7 0 2 2 8 0 3 3 8 1 4 4 7 1 $`1` ID sales leads 5 5 9 0 6 6 7 1 7 7 8 1 8 8 9 0 $`2` ID sales leads 9 9 3 1 10 10 3 0 11 11 14 1 12 12 10 0
The result is three data frames of equal size.
Method 3: Split Data Frame Based on Column Value
The following code shows how to split a data frame into two data frames based on the value in one specific column:
#split data frame based on particular column value df1 <- df[df$leads == 0, ] df2 <- df[df$leads != 0, ] #view resulting data frames df1 ID sales leads 1 1 7 0 2 2 8 0 5 5 9 0 8 8 9 0 10 10 3 0 12 12 10 0 df2 ID sales leads 3 3 8 1 4 4 7 1 6 6 7 1 7 7 8 1 9 9 3 1 11 11 14 1
Note that df1 contains all rows where ‘leads’ was equal to zero in the original data frame and df2 contains all rows where ‘leads’ was equal to one in the original data frame.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in R:
How to Merge Multiple Data Frames in R
How to Stack Data Frame Columns in R
How to Add Column to Data Frame Based on Other Columns in R