How to convert columns of an R data frame into a single vector?

Sometimes all the columns in a data frame have similar data characteristics representing a particular variable. For example, having a data frame containing five columns each with heights of people. To convert this type of data frame into a vector we can use as.vector function along with the as.matrix function. The as.matrix will read the data frame columns so that the array of values can be created.

Example1

 Live Demo

Consider the below data frame −

set.seed(101)
x1<−rnorm(20)
x2<−rnorm(20)
x3<−rnorm(20,5,0.34)
df1<−data.frame(x1,x2,x3)
df1

Output

x1 x2 x3
1 −0.3260365 −0.1637557 5.164036
2 0.5524619 0.7085221 5.257793
3 −0.6749438 −0.2679805 4.211429
4 0.2143595 −1.4639218 4.843768
5 0.3107692 0.7444358 4.624170
6 1.1739663 −1.4103902 5.136996
7 0.6187899 0.4670676 5.193438
8 −0.1127343 −0.1193201 4.759932
9 0.9170283 0.4672390 4.901369
10 −0.2232594 0.4981356 4.495481
11 0.5264481 0.8949372 4.608913
12 −0.7948444 0.2791520 4.906680
13 1.4277555 1.0078658 5.196486
14 −1.4668197 −2.0731065 4.525053
15 −0.2366834 1.1898534 5.254680
16 −0.1933380 −0.7243742 4.642597
17 −0.8497547 0.1679838 5.056229
18 0.0584655 0.9203352 5.384135
19 −0.8176704 −1.6716048 5.399066
20 −2.0503078 0.4484691 4.854527

Converting df1 to a vector −

Example

df1_vector<−as.vector(as.matrix(df1[,c("x1","x2","x3")]))
df1_vector

Output

[1] −0.3260365 0.5524619 −0.6749438 0.2143595 0.3107692 1.1739663
[7] 0.6187899 −0.1127343 0.9170283 −0.2232594 0.5264481 −0.7948444
[13] 1.4277555 −1.4668197 −0.2366834 −0.1933380 −0.8497547 0.0584655
[19] −0.8176704 −2.0503078 −0.1637557 0.7085221 −0.2679805 −1.4639218
[25] 0.7444358 −1.4103902 0.4670676 −0.1193201 0.4672390 0.4981356
[31] 0.8949372 0.2791520 1.0078658 −2.0731065 1.1898534 −0.7243742
[37] 0.1679838 0.9203352 −1.6716048 0.4484691 5.1640360 5.2577927
[43] 4.2114287 4.8437684 4.6241696 5.1369956 5.1934379 4.7599317
[49] 4.9013692 4.4954815 4.6089132 4.9066798 5.1964863 4.5250531
[55] 5.2546796 4.6425965 5.0562295 5.3841351 5.3990656 4.8545265

Example2

 Live Demo

y1<−sample(LETTERS[1:26],20)
y2<−sample(LETTERS[1:26],20)
y3<−sample(LETTERS[1:26],20)
y4<−sample(LETTERS[1:26],20)
df2<−data.frame(y1,y2,y3,y4)
df2

Output

  y1 y2 y3 y4
1  G V P Y
2  A J N A
3  E L X L
4  K E B O
5  P Z O E
6  W T T Z
7  X N J U
8  L D L J
9  U U Z X
10 Y B A F
11 F M W I
12 Q P F B
13 T Y H M
14 H C K T
15 I F Y W
16 N G G H
17 R A M K
18 S K E G
19 C O U Q
20 O W D V

Converting df2 to a vector −

Example

df2_vector<−as.vector(as.matrix(df2[,c("y1","y2","y3","y4")]))
df2_vector

Output

[1] "G" "A" "E" "K" "P" "W" "X" "L" "U" "Y" "F" "Q" "T" "H" "I" "N" "R" "S" "C"
[20] "O" "V" "J" "L" "E" "Z" "T" "N" "D" "U" "B" "M" "P" "Y" "C" "F" "G" "A" "K"
[39] "O" "W" "P" "N" "X" "B" "O" "T" "J" "L" "Z" "A" "W" "F" "H" "K" "Y" "G" "M"
[58] "E" "U" "D" "Y" "A" "L" "O" "E" "Z" "U" "J" "X" "F" "I" "B" "M" "T" "W" "H"
[77] "K" "G" "Q" "V"