dplyr::slice()

Ted Laderas

In this document, I will introduce the slice() function and show what it’s for.

library(tidyverse)
library(palmerpenguins)
data(penguins)

What is it for?

Say you want the first 7 rows of a table. Well, slice() is an easy way to do that. The slice() function accepts two arguments: The first is the dataset, and the second is the range of values you want to extract.

slice(penguins, 1:7) %>%
  paged_table()

slice() is much more helpful in a tidy workflow, so you can see the first few rows of the data when you’re processing. This is really helpful when you’re building up a pipeline and need to show intermediate output without showing the entire table.

penguins %>%
  slice(1:7) %>%
  paged_table()

Is it helpful?

Yes, when you need to just show part of a table as an example, slice() can come in handy. I don’t use it everyday, but it can come in handy.