How to Relabel Rows and Columns in an R Table

This article describes how to change the header names in a table from this...

... to a table with these names:

Requirements

An R table generated in a calculation contains rows and columns.

Method 1 - Specify all labels

1. Select your R table.

2. In the object inspector , go to Data > R CODE > Edit Code. The Code Editor window will then display at the bottom.

3. To update the table's column names, add a line to the code like this:

colnames(table_name) = c("label1", "label2", "label3") 

4. To update the table's row names, add a line to the code like this:

rownames(table_name) = c("label1", "label2", "label3")

Note that if your table contains a single column with no header, you should use row names instead of column names.

5. Add a line with the table_name to return the updated table.

Below is the code needed to change the column names in the above example (the name of the input table is merged):

colnames(merged) = c("Awareness","Preference","Affinity")
 merged

Method 2 - Replace specific labels

1. Select your R table.

2. In the object inspector, go to Data > R CODE > Edit Code. The Code Editor window will then display at the bottom.

3. To update a specific row label in your table, add a line to the code:

rownames(table_name)[rownames(table_name) == "old label"] = "new label"

4. To update a specific column label in your table, add a line to the code:

colnames(table_name)[colnames(table_name) == "old label"] = "new label"

Below is the code for changing the first column name in this example:

colnames(merged)[colnames(merged) == "Q1b - Awareness"] = "Awareness"

Method 3 - Replace all labels based on another table

1. Select the table from which you wish to copy the labels.

2. Copy the name from Properties > GENERAL > Name.

3. Select the R table you wish to update.

4. In the object inspector, go to Data > R CODE >  Edit Code. The Code Editor window will then display at the bottom.

5. To update all the table's column names with those of the table from steps 1 and 2, add a line to the code:

colnames(table_name) = colnames(reference_table_name)

The equivalent for changing row names is:

rownames(table_name) = rownames(reference_table_name)

Note, the above requires the same number of rows/columns in both tables.

Method 4 - Add a prefix or suffix to labels

1. Select your R table.

2. In the object inspector, go to Data> R CODE > Edit Code. The Code Editor window will then display at the bottom.

3. To add a prefix or suffix to your rows or columns, add in the appropriate line to the code below:

rownames(table_name) = paste("Prefix",rownames(table_name),"Suffix")

colnames(table_name) = paste("Prefix",colnames(table_name),"Suffix")

For example, below we will prefix a table's column names with "Gender: ":

colnames(tab) = paste("Gender: ",colnames(tab))

Next

How to Use R's Paste Formulas in Displayr

How to Remove a Row or Column from a Table Using R