How can I use an exsisting column as sample ID

Question

I imported an excel file with animal data that looks something like this:

AnimalID	Sex	Body Weight	District
AB1	1	3.45	4
AB2	1	2.98	4
AB3	2	3.22	5
AB4	2	3.01	5

I want to use to use my first column(AnimaID) as rownames.

I've searched for an answer but most questions address the creation of a new column that then becomes the rownames column. I actually feel stupid coming on here and asking this. My aim is to create a pca plot using ggplot2, and that requires me to have the dataframe in the format that ggplots2 recognizes.

Answer 1

A possible solution, in base R:

rownames(df) <- df$AnimalID
df <- df[,-1]
df

#>     Sex Body.Weight District
#> AB1   1        3.45        4
#> AB2   1        2.98        4
#> AB3   2        3.22        5
#> AB4   2        3.01        5

---

Or using tidyverse:

library(tidyverse)

df %>% column_to_rownames("AnimalID")

#>     Sex Body.Weight District
#> AB1   1        3.45        4
#> AB2   1        2.98        4
#> AB3   2        3.22        5
#> AB4   2        3.01        5

Answer 2

Another base option:

row.names(df) <- df$AnimalID
df[1] <- NULL

Output:

    Sex Body_Weight District
AB1   1        3.45        4
AB2   1        2.98        4
AB3   2        3.22        5
AB4   2        3.01        6