Removing display of row names from data frame

Question

I am creating a dataframe using this code:

df <- data.frame(dbGetQuery(con, paste('select * from test')))

Which results in this:

    UID      BuildingCode   AccessTime
1   123456   BUILD-1        2014-06-16 07:00:00
2   364952   BUILD-2        2014-06-15 08:00:00
3    95865   BUILD-1        2014-06-06 09:50:00

I am then trying to remove the row names (1, 2, 3, etc) as suggested here by using this code:

rownames(df) <- NULL

But then when I print out df it still displays the row names. Is there a way to not include the row names when creating the data frame? I found a suggestion about row.name = FALSE but when I tried it I just got errors (I might have placed it in the wrong place).

EDIT: What I want to do is convert the dateframe to a HTML table and I don't want the row name to be present in the table.

It is not clear what you mean by "when I print out df". Is `row.names = FALSE` in `write.table` relevant? — Henrik, Jun 26 '14 at 10:40
@Henrik probably offers the best solution here. I wonder though why doing something like `attributes(df)$row.names <- NULL` erases all values form df — David Arenburg, Jun 26 '14 at 10:43
What I mean by "when I print out df" is I type `df` into the terminal which then prints out the data frame. I don't have `write.table` because I'm not writing a table (and when I do I'm going to be using xtable). — Dom Abbott, Jun 26 '14 at 10:44
@DavidArenburg your correct, that works! But how would I put that into a html table? — Dom Abbott, Jun 26 '14 at 10:50

Anders Ellern Bilgrau · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-03T19:22:16.993

127

You have successfully removed the row names. The print.data.frame method just shows the row numbers if no row names are present.

df1 <- data.frame(values = rnorm(3), group = letters[1:3],
                  row.names = paste0("RowName", 1:3))
print(df1)
#            values group
#RowName1 -1.469809     a
#RowName2 -1.164943     b
#RowName3  0.899430     c

rownames(df1) <- NULL
print(df1)
#     values group
#1 -1.469809     a
#2 -1.164943     b
#3  0.899430     c

You can suppress printing the row names and numbers in print.data.frame with the argument row.names as FALSE.

print(df1, row.names = FALSE)
#     values group
# -1.4345829     d
#  0.2182768     e
# -0.2855440     f

Edit: As written in the comments, you want to convert this to HTML. From the xtable and print.xtable documentation, you can see that the argument include.rownames will do the trick.

library("xtable")
print(xtable(df1), type="html", include.rownames = FALSE)
#<!-- html table generated in R 3.1.0 by xtable 1.7-3 package -->
#<!-- Thu Jun 26 12:50:17 2014 -->
#<TABLE border=1>
#<TR> <TH> values </TH> <TH> group </TH>  </TR>
#<TR> <TD align="right"> -0.34 </TD> <TD> a </TD> </TR>
#<TR> <TD align="right"> -1.04 </TD> <TD> b </TD> </TR>
#<TR> <TD align="right"> -0.48 </TD> <TD> c </TD> </TR>
#</TABLE>

edited Aug 03 '19 at 19:22

answered Jun 26 '14 at 10:34

Anders Ellern Bilgrau

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After doing as I said above, when I do `attributes(df)` I get this result: `$row.names [1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15`. Does this not indicate that the row names are still there? Basically what I want to do is convert the DF to a HTML table and I just don't want the row name to be present. – Dom Abbott Jun 26 '14 at 10:37
@DomAbbott From the R docs, a `data.frame` is "is a `list` of variables of the same number of rows with unique row names, given class '`data.frame`'. If no variables are included, the row names determine the number of rows." Hence row names are always present in the attributes. How do you do your conversion? – Anders Ellern Bilgrau Jun 26 '14 at 10:44
What do you mean by conversion? I am using this code to create a html table `print(xtable(df), type="html", file="example.html")` but this includes the row names. – Dom Abbott Jun 26 '14 at 10:48
@DomAbbott add this comment to your post, so we know what you are trying to accomplish. – zx8754 Jun 26 '14 at 10:51
@DomAbbott I've edited so you get what you want. You need to use the `include.rownames` argument. – Anders Ellern Bilgrau Jun 26 '14 at 10:53

score 40 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 06 '15 at 20:50

Yes I know it is over half a year later and a tad late, BUT

row.names(df) <- NULL

does work. For me at least :-)

And if you have important information in row.names like dates for example, what I do is just :

df$Dates <- as.Date(row.names(df))

This will add a new column on the end but if you want it at the beginning of your data frame

df <- df[,c(7,1,2,3,4,5,6,...)]

Hope this helps those from Google :)

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 25 '19 at 02:56

17

If you want to format your table via kable, you can use row.names = F

kable(df, row.names = F)

answered Sep 25 '19 at 02:56

Guilherme Parreira

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score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 14 '21 at 15:33

7

A dplyr solution :

df = df %>% `rownames<-`( NULL )

answered Jul 14 '21 at 15:33

Soumya Boral

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This isn't a "dplyr solution". If anything it's a magrittr solution. But a much simpler solution would be to just call rownames(df) <- NULL. – nathaneastwood May 16 '22 at 11:46
See https://stackoverflow.com/a/72318941/8806649 for `tidyverse` solution – Julien Sep 28 '22 at 13:17

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

2

Recently I had the same problem when using htmlTable() (‘htmlTable’ package) and I found a simpler solution: convert the data frame to a matrix with as.matrix():

htmlTable(as.matrix(df))

And be sure that the rownames are just indices. as.matrix() conservs the same columnames. That's it.

UPDATE

Following the comment of @DMR, I did't notice that htmlTable() has the parameter rnames = FALSE for cases like this. So a better answer would be:

htmlTable(df, rnames = FALSE)

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Jan 17 '19 at 22:06

CamiloEr

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htmlTable has the ```rnames``` parameter for this: ```htmlTable(df, rnames = FALSE)``` – DMR May 24 '19 at 00:51

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered May 20 '22 at 12:27

2

...or simply:

library(tidyverse)

df_data_with_rownames %>%
SOME STUFF %>%
tibble::remove_rownames() -> wrangled_df_data_without_rownames

answered May 20 '22 at 12:27

Kework K. Kalustian

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 20 '20 at 19:07

My answer is intended for comment though but since i havent got enough reputation, i think it will still be relevant as an answer and help some one.

I find datatable in library DT robust to handle rownames, and columnames

Library DT
datatable(df, rownames = FALSE)  # no row names

refer to https://rstudio.github.io/DT/ for usage scenarios

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 09 '22 at 18:07

Another simple way is assigning c() to your rownames to get rid of your row names like this (thanks @Anders for data):

df <- data.frame(values = rnorm(3), group = letters[1:3],
                  row.names = paste0("RowName", 1:3))
df
#>             values group
#> RowName1 0.4189236     a
#> RowName2 1.8604397     b
#> RowName3 0.7030387     c
rownames(df) <- c()
print(df)
#>      values group
#> 1 0.4189236     a
#> 2 1.8604397     b
#> 3 0.7030387     c

^{Created on 2022-07-09 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 26 '22 at 20:52

0

I just wanted to add that data.table has an option for removing rownames when printing data.table's.

options(datatable.print.rownames = F)

This solved my problem in the console and when rendering RMarkdown files. See other printing options here

answered Aug 26 '22 at 20:52

Lil' Pete

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 09 '22 at 17:43

0

simply try rownames(df) <- ""

answered Oct 09 '22 at 17:43

Mtl_1642

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Removing display of row names from data frame

10 Answers10

UPDATE

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