How to Subset Data Frame in R by Multiple Conditions

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You can use the following methods to subset a data frame by multiple conditions in R:

Method 1: Subset Data Frame Using “OR” Logic

df_sub == 'A' | points  20)

This particular example will subset the data frame for rows where the team column is equal to ‘A’ or the points column is less than 20.

Method 2: Subset Data Frame Using “AND” Logic

df_sub == 'A' & points  20)

This particular example will subset the data frame for rows where the team column is equal to ‘A’ and the points column is less than 20.

This tutorial explains how to use each method in practice with the following data frame:

#create data frame
df frame(team=c('A', 'A', 'A', 'B', 'B', 'B'),
                 position=c('Guard', 'Guard', 'Forward',
                            'Guard', 'Forward', 'Forward'),
                 points=c(22, 25, 19, 22, 12, 35))

#view data frame
df

  team position points
1    A    Guard     22
2    A    Guard     25
3    A  Forward     19
4    B    Guard     22
5    B  Forward     12
6    B  Forward     35

Example 1: Subset Data Frame Using “OR” Logic

The following code shows how to subset the data frame for rows where the team column is equal to ‘A’ or the points column is less than 20:

#subset data frame where team is 'A' or points is less than 20
df_sub == 'A' | points  20)

#view subset
df_sub

  team position points
1    A    Guard     22
2    A    Guard     25
3    A  Forward     19
5    B  Forward     12

Each of the rows in the subset either have a value of ‘A’ in the team column or have a value in the points column less than 20.

Note: The | symbol represents “OR” in R.

In this example, we only included one “OR” symbol in the subset() function but we could include as many as we like to subset based on even more conditions.

Example 2: Subset Data Frame Using “AND” Logic

The following code shows how to subset the data frame for rows where the team column is equal to ‘A’ and the points column is less than 20:

#subset data frame where team is 'A' and points is less than 20
df_sub == 'A' & points  20)

#view subset
df_sub

  team position points
3    A  Forward     19

Notice that the resulting subset only contains one row.

This is because only one row has a value of ‘A’ in the team column and has a value in the points column less than 20.

Note: The & symbol represents “AND” in R.

In this example, we only included one “AND” symbol in the subset() function but we could include as many as we like to subset based on even more conditions.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in R:

How to Select Unique Rows in a Data Frame in R
How to Select Rows with NA Values in R
How to Select Rows Based on Values in Vector in R