Calculate difference between columns of R DataFrame

Generally, the difference between two columns can be calculated from a dataframe that contains some numeric data. In this article, we will discuss how the difference between columns can be calculated in the R programming language.

Approach

• Create a dataframe and the columns should be of numeric or integer data type so that we can find the difference between them.
• Extract required data from columns using the $ operator into separate variables. For example, we have two columns then extract individual columns into separate variables.
• Then perform the minus operation for the difference between those columns.
• Finally, print the result.

Example 1 : 

R

# creating a dataframe
df=data.frame(num=c(1,2,3,4),num1=c(5,4,3,2))

# Extracting column 1
a=df$num

# Extracting column 2
b=df$num1

# printing dataframe
print(df)

# printing difference among
# two columns
print(b-a)

Output :

Example 2 :

R

# creating a dataframe with some
# numeric data
df=data.frame(num=c(1.9,2.9,3.4,5.6,9.8),
              num1=c(6.3,7.7,8.0,9.3,10.9))
print(df)

# extracting column 1 into a
# variable called a
a=df$num

# extracting column 2 into a
# variable called b
b=df$num1

# printing the difference between
# two columns
print(b-a)

Output :

Example 3 : 

R

# creating a dataframe with
# some numeric data
df=data.frame(num=c(1,2,3,4,5),
              num1=c(6,7,8,9,10))

# extracting column 1 into a
# variable called a
a=df$num

# extracting column 2 into a
# variable called b
b=df$num1

# printing the dataframe
print(df)

# printing the difference
# between two columns
print(b-a)

Output :