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How to Filter Rows in R

by Tutor Aspire

Often you may be interested in subsetting a data frame based on certain conditions in R. Fortunately this is easy to do using the filter() function from the dplyr package.

library(dplyr)

This tutorial explains several examples of how to use this function in practice using the built-in dplyr dataset called starwars:

#view first six rows of starwars dataset
head(starwars)

# A tibble: 6 x 13
  name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender homeworld
                                   
1 Luke~    172    77 blond      fair       blue            19   male   Tatooine 
2 C-3PO    167    75        gold       yellow         112      Tatooine 
3 R2-D2     96    32        white, bl~ red             33      Naboo    
4 Dart~    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 male   Tatooine 
5 Leia~    150    49 brown      light      brown           19   female Alderaan 
6 Owen~    178   120 brown, gr~ light      blue            52   male   Tatooine 
# ... with 4 more variables: species , films , vehicles ,
#   starships 

Example 1: Filter Rows Equal to Some Value

The following code shows how to filter the dataset for rows where the variable ‘species’ is equal to Droid.

starwars %>% filter(species == 'Droid')

# A tibble: 5 x 13
  name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender homeworld
                                   
1 C-3PO    167    75        gold       yellow           112    Tatooine 
2 R2-D2     96    32        white, bl~ red               33    Naboo    
3 R5-D4     97    32        white, red red               NA    Tatooine 
4 IG-88    200   140 none       metal      red               15 none        
5 BB8       NA    NA none       none       black             NA none        
# ... with 4 more variables: species , films , vehicles ,
#   starships 

We can see that 5 rows in the dataset met this condition, as indicated by #A tibble: 5 x 13.

Example 2: Filter Rows Using ‘And’

We can also filter for rows where the species is Droid and the eye color is red:

starwars %>% filter(species == 'Droid' & eye_color == 'red')

# A tibble: 3 x 13
  name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender homeworld
                                   
1 R2-D2     96    32        white, bl~ red               33   Naboo    
2 R5-D4     97    32        white, red red               NA   Tatooine 
3 IG-88    200   140 none       metal      red               15 none        
# ... with 4 more variables: species , films , vehicles ,
#   starships 

We can see that 3 rows in the dataset met this condition.

Example 3: Filter Rows Using ‘Or’

We can also filter for rows where the species is Droid or the eye color is red:

starwars %>% filter(species == 'Droid' | eye_color == 'red')

# A tibble: 7 x 13
  name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender homeworld
                                   
1 C-3PO    167    75        gold       yellow           112    Tatooine 
2 R2-D2     96    32        white, bl~ red               33    Naboo    
3 R5-D4     97    32        white, red red               NA    Tatooine 
4 IG-88    200   140 none       metal      red               15 none        
5 Bossk    190   113 none       green      red               53 male   Trandosha
6 Nute~    191    90 none       mottled g~ red               NA male   Cato Nei~
7 BB8       NA    NA none       none       black             NA none        
# ... with 4 more variables: species , films , vehicles ,
#   starships  

We can see that 7 rows in the dataset met this condition.

Example 4: Filter Rows with Values in a List

We can also filter for rows where the eye color is in a list of colors:

starwars %>% filter(eye_color %in% c('blue', 'yellow', 'red'))

# A tibble: 35 x 13
   name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender
                               
 1 Luke~    172    77 blond      fair       blue            19   male  
 2 C-3PO    167    75        gold       yellow         112    
 3 R2-D2     96    32        white, bl~ red             33     
 4 Dart~    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 male  
 5 Owen~    178   120 brown, gr~ light      blue            52   male  
 6 Beru~    165    75 brown      light      blue            47   female
 7 R5-D4     97    32        white, red red             NA    
 8 Anak~    188    84 blond      fair       blue            41.9 male  
 9 Wilh~    180    NA auburn, g~ fair       blue            64   male  
10 Chew~    228   112 brown      unknown    blue           200   male  
# ... with 25 more rows, and 5 more variables: homeworld , species ,
#   films , vehicles , starships  

We can see that 35 rows in the dataset had an eye color of blue, yellow, or red.

Related: How to Use %in% Operator in R (With Examples)

Example 5: Filter Rows Using Less Than or Greater Than

We can also filter rows using less than or greater than operations on numeric variables:

#find rows where height is greater than 250
starwars %>% filter(height > 250)

# A tibble: 1 x 13
  name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender homeworld
                                   
1 Yara~    264    NA none       white      yellow            NA male   Quermia  
# ... with 4 more variables: species , films , vehicles ,
#   starships   

#find rows where height is between 200 and 220
starwars %>% filter(height > 200 & height  220)

# A tibble: 5 x 13
  name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender homeworld
                                   
1 Dart~    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 male   Tatooine 
2 Rugo~    206    NA none       green      orange          NA   male   Naboo    
3 Taun~    213    NA none       grey       black           NA   female Kamino   
4 Grie~    216   159 none       brown, wh~ green, y~       NA   male   Kalee    
5 Tion~    206    80 none       grey       black           NA   male   Utapau   
# ... with 4 more variables: species , films , vehicles ,
#   starships 

#find rows where height is above the average height
starwars %>% filter(height > mean(height, na.rm = TRUE))

# A tibble: 51 x 13
   name  height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year gender
                               
 1 Dart~    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 male  
 2 Owen~    178   120 brown, gr~ light      blue            52   male  
 3 Bigg~    183    84 black      light      brown           24   male  
 4 Obi-~    182    77 auburn, w~ fair       blue-gray       57   male  
 5 Anak~    188    84 blond      fair       blue            41.9 male  
 6 Wilh~    180    NA auburn, g~ fair       blue            64   male  
 7 Chew~    228   112 brown      unknown    blue           200   male  
 8 Han ~    180    80 brown      fair       brown           29   male  
 9 Jabb~    175  1358        green-tan~ orange         600   herma~
10 Jek ~    180   110 brown      fair       blue            NA   male  
# ... with 41 more rows, and 5 more variables: homeworld , species ,
#   films , vehicles , starships 

You can find the complete documentation for the filter() function here.

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