Remove Duplicated Rows from Data Frame in R (Example)

This tutorial illustrates how to eliminate duplicated rows from a data frame in R programming.

Table of contents:

• Creation of Example Data
• Example: Delete Duplicated Rows from Data Frame
• Video & Further Resources

Let’s dig in…

Creation of Example Data

In the example of this R tutorial, we’ll use the following data frame in R:

data <- data.frame(x1 = c(1:5, 2, 5),                # Create example data
                   x2 = c(letters[1:5], "b", "e"))
data                                                 # Print example data
# x1 x2
#  1  a
#  2  b
#  3  c
#  4  d
#  5  e
#  2  b
#  5  e

The RStudio console output is illustrating the structure of our data. Our data frame consists of seven rows and two columns, whereby rows 1 and 2 are duplicated in rows 6 and 7.

Example: Delete Duplicated Rows from Data Frame

If we want to remove repeated rows from our example data, we can use the duplicated() R function. The duplicated function returns a logical vector, identifying duplicated rows with a TRUE or FALSE. By putting a bang (i.e. !) in front of the duplicated command, we can subset our data so that only unique rows remain:

data_unique <- data[!duplicated(data), ]             # Remove duplicated rows
data_unique                                          # Print unique data
# x1 x2
#  1  a
#  2  b
#  3  c
#  4  d
#  5  e

As you can see based on the previous output of the RStudio console, only the five unique rows were obtained in our data. Rows 6 and seven were removed.

Video & Further Resources

Would you like to know more about the removal of replicated rows in a data matrix? Then you might watch the following video of my YouTube channel. I show the R programming codes of this tutorial in the video and explain how to find and remove duplicates in some more detail:

In addition, you might read the other posts of my website. A selection of related articles is listed here:

• Remove Duplicates with dplyr Package
• Subset Data Frame Rows by Logical Condition in R
• unique Function in R
• The R Programming Language

Summary: At this point of the tutorial you should have learned how to identify and remove duplicate rows that are repeated multiple times in the R programming language. Let me know in the comments section below, in case you have any further questions.