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rdataframeaddition

How can I add columns without having to type out all of the column names?

Let's say I have 10 columns, and I want to add an 11th column that sums columns 1-6 for each row. How can I do this? I saw this on another answer:

data$newCol <- sum(data[1:6])

But that resulted in a single number for all rows in newCol, which isn't what I'm trying to do. The only way I know how to do this is like this:

data$newCol <- data$colA + data$colB + data$colC

and so on, but this gets tedious when I'm working with more than just a few columns. Is there a shortcut, like using [1:6] somehow? I'm sure this is such a beginner question, I tried searching but didn't see an answer that made sense to me, sorry.

Thank you!

Solution

  • You can try apply function

    data$newCol <- apply(data[,1:6], 1, sum, na.rm=TRUE)