Merge two vectors in R programming

In this tutorial, we will learn how to merge two vectors in R programming.

TYPES

When we talk about merging the vectors, it can be done in 3 ways:

1. Concatenation, which involves combining of vectors by appending them.
2. Joining involves merging based on particular criteria.
3. Binding, combing either row wise or column wise.

FUNCTIONS TO MERGE VECTORS in R

Case 1: c() function, to combine vectors

n_v1 <- c(14,28,42)
n_v2 <- c(56,70,84)
concat_n <- c(n_v1,n_v2)
concat_n

In the above code, we have created 2 vectors n_v1 and n_v2, then used the concatenate function which appends both vectors.

Output:

[1] 14 28 42 56 70 84

Case 2: merge() is certainly used to join vectors of similar columns.

n_v3 <- c(1, 2, 3)
n_v4 <- c(4, 5, 6)

x <- data.frame(ID = 1:3, val1 = n_v3)
y <- data.frame(ID = 2:4, val2 = n_v4)

mer_out <- merge(x,y, by = "ID")
mer_out

In the above code once the two vectors or dataframes are created n_v3 and n_v4  merge function is used to join both vectors.

Output:

Case 3: rbind() or cbind() combines rows or columns.

n_v5 <- c(12,24, 36,48)
n_v6 <- c(60,72)

#row binding
bindr <- rbind(n_v5,n_v6)
bindr

#column binding
bindc <- cbind(n_v5,n_v6)
bindc

In this code, vec1 and vec2 are merged row wise, using rbind() and then column wise, using cbind() function.

Output:

The above three functions show the different techniques of merging two vectors in R. As in the above examples we have similarly merged only 2 vectors we can add more vectors and continue in the same way. When dealing with a whole dataset, these different techniques are quite helpful in exploring data and taking smart moves at the right time.