How to Remove Multiple Rows in R (With Examples)

You can use one of the following methods to remove multiple rows from a data frame in R:

Method 1: Remove Specific Rows

#remove rows 2, 3, and 4
new_df <- df[-c(2, 3, 4), ]

Method 2: Remove Range of Rows

#remove rows 2 through 5
new_df <- df[-c(2:5), ]

Method 3: Remove Last N Rows

#remove rows 4 through last row
new_df <- df[-c(4:nrow(df)), ]

The following examples show how to use each of these methods in practice with the following data frame:

#create data frame
df <- data.frame(team=c('A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F'),
                 points=c(99, 90, 86, 88, 95, 99),
                 assists=c(33, 28, 31, 39, 34, 24))

#view data frame
df

  team points assists
1    A     99      33
2    B     90      28
3    C     86      31
4    D     88      39
5    E     95      34
6    F     99      24

Example 1: Remove Specific Rows

The following code shows how to remove rows 2, 3, and 4 from the data frame:

#define new data frame with rows 2, 3, 4 removed
new_df <- df[-c(2, 3, 4),]

#view new data frame
new_df

  team points assists
1    A     99      33
5    E     95      34
6    F     99      24

Notice that rows 2, 3, and 4 have all been removed from the data frame.

Example 2: Remove Range of Rows

The following code shows how to remove rows in the range of 2 through 5:

#define new data frame with rows 2 through 5 removed
new_df <- df[-c(2:5),]

#view new data frame
new_df

  team points assists
1    A     99      33
6    F     99      24

Notice that rows 2, 3, 4, and 5 have been removed.

Example 3: Remove Last N Rows

The following code shows how to remove rows 4 through the last row:

#remove rows 4 through last row
new_df <- df[-c(4:nrow(df)), ]

#view new data frame
new_df

  team points assists
1    A     99      33
2    B     90      28
3    C     86      31

Notice that row 4 and all rows after it have been removed.