The R Project SVN R

\name{Extract}
\title{Extract or Replace Parts of an Object}
\alias{Extract}
\alias{Subscript}
\alias{[}
\alias{[[}
\alias{$}
\alias{[<-}
\alias{[[<-}
\alias{$<-}
%- methods
\alias{[.data.frame}
\alias{[[.data.frame}
\alias{[<-.data.frame}
\alias{[[<-.data.frame}
\alias{[.factor}
\alias{[.formula}
\alias{[.ts}
\alias{[<-.factor}
\alias{[.noquote}
\alias{[<-.noquote}
\description{
  Operators act on vectors, arrays, dataframes and lists to extract or
  replace subsets.
}
\usage{
x[i]
x[i, j, \dots]
x[i, j, \dots , drop=TRUE]
x[[i]]
x[[i, j, \dots]]
x$name
}
\arguments{
  \item{i,j,name}{elements to extract or replace}
  \item{drop}{For data frames, matrices, and arrays.  If \code{TRUE} the
    result is coerced to the lowest possible dimension (see examples
    below).}
}
\details{
  If one of these expressions appears on the left side of an assignment
  then that part of \code{x} is set to the value of the right hand side
  of the assignment.

  These operators are generic. You can write methods to handle subsetting
  of specific classes of data.

  The \code{[[} operator requires all relevant subscripts be supplied.
  With the \code{[} operator a comma separated blank indicates that all
  entries in that dimension are selected.

  When \code{[.data.frame} is used for subsetting rows of a
  \code{\link{data.frame}}, it returns a dataframe with unique row names,
  using \code{\link{make.names}( * , unique = TRUE)}, see the \code{swiss}
  example below.

  When operating on a list, the \code{[[} operator gives the specified
  element of the list while the \code{[} operator returns a list with
  the specified element(s) in it.

  The operators \code{$} and \code{$<-} do not evaluate their second
  argument. It is translated to a string and that string is used to
  locate the correct component of the first argument.
}
\seealso{
  \code{\link{list}}, \code{\link{array}}, \code{\link{matrix}}.
}
\examples{
x <- 1:12; m <- matrix(1:6,nr=2); li <- list(pi=pi, e = exp(1))
x[10]                 # the tenth element of x
m[1,]                 # the first row of matrix m
m[1, , drop = FALSE]  # is a 1-row matrix
li[[1]]               # the first element of list li
y <- list(1,2,a=4,5)
y[c(3,4)]             # a list containing elements 3 and 4 of y
y$a                   # the element of y named a

data(swiss)
swiss[ c(1, 1:2), ]   # duplicate row, unique row names
}
\keyword{array}
\keyword{list}