bind: Efficiently bind multiple data frames by row and column

Description

This is an efficient implementation of the common pattern of do.call(rbind, dfs) or do.call(cbind, dfs) for binding many data frames into one.

Usage

bind_rows(..., .id = NULL)
bind_cols(
  ...,
  .name_repair = c("unique", "universal", "check_unique", "minimal")
)

Value

bind_rows() and bind_cols() return the same type as the first input, either a data frame, tbl_df, or grouped_df.

Arguments

...

Data frames to combine.

Each argument can either be a data frame, a list that could be a data frame, or a list of data frames.

When row-binding, columns are matched by name, and any missing columns will be filled with NA.

When column-binding, rows are matched by position, so all data frames must have the same number of rows. To match by value, not position, see mutate-joins.

.id

Data frame identifier.

When .id is supplied, a new column of identifiers is created to link each row to its original data frame. The labels are taken from the named arguments to bind_rows(). When a list of data frames is supplied, the labels are taken from the names of the list. If no names are found a numeric sequence is used instead.

.name_repair

One of "unique", "universal", or "check_unique". See vctrs::vec_as_names() for the meaning of these options.

Details

The output of bind_rows() will contain a column if that column appears in any of the inputs.

Examples

Run this code

one <- starwars[1:4, ]
two <- starwars[9:12, ]

# You can supply data frames as arguments:
bind_rows(one, two)

# The contents of lists are spliced automatically:
bind_rows(list(one, two))
bind_rows(split(starwars, starwars$homeworld))
bind_rows(list(one, two), list(two, one))


# In addition to data frames, you can supply vectors. In the rows
# direction, the vectors represent rows and should have inner
# names:
bind_rows(
  c(a = 1, b = 2),
  c(a = 3, b = 4)
)

# You can mix vectors and data frames:
bind_rows(
  c(a = 1, b = 2),
  tibble(a = 3:4, b = 5:6),
  c(a = 7, b = 8)
)


# When you supply a column name with the `.id` argument, a new
# column is created to link each row to its original data frame
bind_rows(list(one, two), .id = "id")
bind_rows(list(a = one, b = two), .id = "id")
bind_rows("group 1" = one, "group 2" = two, .id = "groups")

# Columns don't need to match when row-binding
bind_rows(tibble(x = 1:3), tibble(y = 1:4))

# Row sizes must be compatible when column-binding
try(bind_cols(tibble(x = 1:3), tibble(y = 1:2)))

# Even with 0 columns
try(bind_cols(tibble(x = 1:3), tibble()))

bind_cols(one, two)
bind_cols(list(one, two))