What does negative index mean in a data frame?

Question

Recently I read a R statement somewhere, which said:

mtcars[-1]

What does -1 imply here? I do understand the following statement:

mtcars[1]

which means select the first column from the data frame, but I just could not infer the negative sign in the index?

`mtcars[-1]` mean *all but the first column* of the `mtcars` dataframe — Jaap, Apr 28 '18 at 10:31
See the comment by [Jan](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50074119/r-programming-query) posted today. — Rui Barradas, Apr 28 '18 at 10:55

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 28 '18 at 10:31

1

Minus means remove the element with that index, just like "no minus" extract that element with the index

answered Apr 28 '18 at 10:31

kevin

1 Answers1