Split Vector into Chunks in R (2 Examples)

On this page, I’ll show how to divide a vector or array into groups in R.

Table of contents:

Let’s dig in:

Creating Example Data

The data below is used as basement for this R programming language tutorial:

my_vec <- 1:100           # Create example vector
my_vec                    # Print first values of example vector
# [1]   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12 ...

Have a look at the previous output of the RStudio console. It shows that our example data is a vector consisting of 100 numeric values that are ranging from 1 to 100.

Example 1: Split Vector into Chunks Given the Length of Each Chunk

In Example 1, I’ll show how to divide a vector into subgroups when we know the number of elements each group should contain.

First, we have to specify the number of elements in each group (i.e. 20):

chunk_length <- 20        # Define number of elements in chunks

Now, we can use the split, ceiling, and seq_along functions to divide our vector into chunks:

split(my_vec,             # Applying split() function
      ceiling(seq_along(my_vec) / chunk_length))
# $`1`
# [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
# 
# $`2`
# [1] 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
# 
# $`3`
# [1] 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
# 
# $`4`
# [1] 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
# 
# $`5`
# [1]  81  82  83  84  85  86  87  88  89  90  91  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99 100

The output is a list consisting of five list elements. Each list element contains 20 values of our input vector.

Example 2: Split Vector into Chunks Given the Number of Chunks

This example illustrates how to divide a vector into subgroups when we know the number of subgroups that we want to create.

First, we have to set a number of subgroups we want to create (i.e. seven):

chunk_number <- 7         # Define number of chunks

Now, we can apply the split, cut, and seq_along functions to create our seven chunks:

split(my_vec,             # Applying split() function
      cut(seq_along(my_vec),
          chunk_number,
          labels = FALSE))
# $`1`
# [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
# 
# $`2`
# [1] 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
# 
# $`3`
# [1] 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
# 
# $`4`
# [1] 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57
# 
# $`5`
# [1] 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71
# 
# $`6`
# [1] 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85
# 
# $`7`
# [1]  86  87  88  89  90  91  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99 100

The output is a list with seven list elements.

Video & Further Resources

I have recently released a video on my YouTube channel, which illustrates the R programming syntax of this tutorial. You can find the video below:

In addition, you might have a look at some of the related tutorials of www.statisticsglobe.com:

• Split Data Frame into List of Data Frames Based On ID Column
• Split Data Frame Variable into Multiple Columns
• Split Data into Train & Test Sets
• R Programming Examples

You learned in this tutorial how to split vectors into different parts in R. Let me know in the comments section, if you have any further questions.