How to remove first N rows in a data set in R?

Question

I saw this stack-overflow question already. But what I want is to remove first N rows in my data set. I can't think of a solution as I am new to R.

Replace the 2 with N in the link and you have your answer. – Rich Scriven Jun 12 '16 at 05:27 — Rich Scriven, Jun 12 '16 at 05:27

akrun · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-10T00:07:54.137

24

In this case, we need the opposite, so tail can be used.

N <- 5
tail(df, -N)
#    a
#6   6
#7   7
#8   8
#9   9
#10 10

It can be wrapped in a function and specify a condition to return the full dataset if the value of N is negative or 0

f1 <- function(dat, n) if(n <= 0) dat else tail(dat, -n)
f1(df, 0)
f1(df, 5)

df <- data.frame( a = 1:10 )

edited Jan 10 '21 at 00:07

answered Jun 12 '16 at 05:10

akrun

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 12 '16 at 05:20

8

Based on the df used in the example above:

N <- 5

df[-(1:N), , drop = FALSE]

answered Jun 12 '16 at 05:20

milan

`df[-(1:N),]` works for me, but what does `, drop = FALSE` add to it? – Dannid May 02 '23 at 07:13

2 Answers2