Creating Data Frames

Last updated: January 18, 2021

Manually creating a data frame

Sometimes it is helpful to manually create a data frame from within R, either for quick testing or for requesting help in a context where creating a short, self-contained example is necessary. This can be done simply with the tribble function, which is for row-wise creation of tibbles.

df <- tribble(
  ~col_name_1, ~col_name_2, ~col_name_3,
  "a", 1, 3,
  "b", 2, 2,
  "c", 3, 1
)

#  A tibble: 3 x 3
#   col_name_1 col_name_2 col_name_3
#   <chr>           <dbl>      <dbl>
# 1 a                   1          3
# 2 b                   2          2
# 3 c                   3          1

Empty data frames

Another sometimes-useful pattern is creating an empty data frame and then adding rows. I use this pattern for collecting results from a for loop, for example.

df_results <- tribble(~label, ~ci_lower, ~ci_upper)

df_results <- df_results %>% add_row(label="group1", ci_lower=2.7, ci_upper=3.4)
df_results <- df_results %>% add_row(label="group2", ci_lower=1.8, ci_upper=3.7)

#  A tibble: 2 x 3
#   label  ci_lower ci_upper
#   <chr>     <dbl>    <dbl>
# 1 group1      2.7      3.4
# 2 group2      1.8      3.7

When using this pattern, it’s not necessary to pre-specify variable types in the tibble.

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