The cbind function in R, short for column-bind, can be used to combine vectors, matrices and data frames by column.
The following examples show how to use this function in practice.
Example 1: Cbind Vectors into a Matrix
The following code shows how to use cbind to column-bind two vectors into a single matrix:
#create two vectors a #cbind the two vectors into a matrix new_matrix #view matrix new_matrix a b [1,] 1 7 [2,] 3 7 [3,] 3 8 [4,] 4 3 [5,] 5 2 #view class of new_matrix class(new_matrix) [1] "matrix" "array"
Example 2: Cbind Vector to a Data Frame
The following code shows how to use cbind to column-bind a vector to an existing data frame:
#create data frame df frame(a=c(1, 3, 3, 4, 5), b=c(7, 7, 8, 3, 2), c=c(3, 3, 6, 6, 8)) #define vector d #cbind vector to data frame df_new #view data frame df_new a b c d 1 1 7 3 11 2 3 7 3 14 3 3 8 6 16 4 4 3 6 17 5 5 2 8 22
Note that R will throw an error if the length of the vector is not the same as the length of the columns in the existing data frame.
Example 3: Cbind Multiple Vectors to a Data Frame
The following code shows how to use cbind to column-bind multiple vectors to an existing data frame:
#create data frame df frame(a=c(1, 3, 3, 4, 5), b=c(7, 7, 8, 3, 2), c=c(3, 3, 6, 6, 8)) #define vectors d #cbind vectors to data frame df_new #view data frame df_new a b c d e 1 1 7 3 11 34 2 3 7 3 14 35 3 3 8 6 16 36 4 4 3 6 17 36 5 5 2 8 22 40
Example 4: Cbind Two Data Frames
The following code shows how to use cbind to column-bind two data frames into one data frame:
#create two data frames df1 frame(a=c(1, 3, 3, 4, 5), b=c(7, 7, 8, 3, 2), c=c(3, 3, 6, 6, 8)) df2 frame(d=c(11, 14, 16, 17, 22), e=c(34, 35, 36, 36, 40)) #cbind two data frames into one data frame df_new #view data frame df_new a b c d e 1 1 7 3 11 34 2 3 7 3 14 35 3 3 8 6 16 36 4 4 3 6 17 36 5 5 2 8 22 40
Bonus: If you want to bind together vectors, matrices, or data frames by rows, you can used the rbind function instead.