R Error: Arguments Imply Differing Number of Rows (2 Examples)

This article illustrates how to handle the error message “arguments imply differing number of rows” in the R programming language.

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Let’s dive right in:

Example 1: Replicating the Error Message: arguments imply differing number of rows

In Example 1, I’ll illustrate how to reproduce the error “arguments imply differing number of rows”. Have a look at the following R code:

data.frame(x1 = 1:5,               # Wrong application of data.frame
           x2 = 1:6)
# Error in data.frame(x1 = 1:5, x2 = 1:6) : 
#   arguments imply differing number of rows: 5, 6

As you can see, the RStudio console returns the error “arguments imply differing number of rows”.

The reason for this is that we tried to create a data frame with unequal variable lengths (i.e. x1 has a length of five and x2 has a length of six).

Example 2: Fixing the Error Message: arguments imply differing number of rows

In this Section, I’ll illustrate how to solve the error message “arguments imply differing number of rows”:

data.frame(x1 = c(1:5, NA),        # Proper application of data.frame
           x2 = 1:6)
#   x1 x2
# 1  1  1
# 2  2  2
# 3  3  3
# 4  4  4
# 5  5  5
# 6 NA  6

In the previous R code we added an NA value at the end of the shorter column. This way, we created two variables with even length.

Video & Further Resources

Do you need more explanations on the R syntax of this tutorial? Then you might want to watch the following video of my YouTube channel. I’m explaining the R programming syntax of this tutorial in the video:

In addition, I can recommend to read the related articles of my homepage.

• Dealing with Warning & Error Messages in R (Overview)
• The R Programming Language

In summary: You learned in this article how to deal with the error “arguments imply differing number of rows” in the R programming language. Don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below, in case you have additional questions.