Using multiple criteria in subset function and logical operators

Question

If I want to select a subset of data in R, I can use the subset function. I wanted to base an analysis on data that that was matching one of a few criteria, e.g. that a cert

Answer 1

For your example, I believe the following should work:

myNewDataFrame <- subset(bigfive, subset = bf11 == 1 | bf11 == 2 | bf11 == 3)

See the examples in ?subset for more. Just to demonstrate, a more complicated logical subset would be:

data(airquality)
dat <- subset(airquality, subset = (Temp > 80 & Month > 5) | Ozone < 40)

And as Chase points out, %in% would be more efficient in your example:

myNewDataFrame <- subset(bigfive, subset = bf11 %in% c(1, 2, 3))

As Chase also points out, make sure you understand the difference between | and ||. To see help pages for operators, use ?'||', where the operator is quoted.