try test <- subset(test, select = -c(Y))
The key is the minus sign before c() in the select argument. You can put in as many columns as you like. -a On Feb 23, 2010, at 11:02 AM, David Winsemius wrote: > > On Feb 23, 2010, at 6:04 AM, Knut Krueger wrote: > >> Hi to all, >> test <- data.frame("X"=c(1:4),"Y"=c(5:8),"Z"=c(8:11)) >> test <- test[,-2] >> >> Is there a way to specify the col name "Y" to delete instead the number? >> > > I believe that negative indexing only works with numeric arguments. You could > dummy up a negation approach for character vectors with: > > > test[, !(names(test) %in% c("Y"))] #non-negated logical vector to index > X Z > 1 1 8 > 2 2 9 > 3 3 10 > 4 4 11 > > > test[, -grep("Y",names(test))] # negated numeric vector to index > X Z > 1 1 8 > 2 2 9 > 3 3 10 > 4 4 11 > > -- > David >> Kind regards Knut >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. The information contained in this message may be privile...{{dropped:17}} ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.