Left join only selected columns in R with the merge() function

Question

I am trying to LEFT Join 2 data frames but I do not want join all the variables from the second data set:

As an example, I have dataset 1 (DF1):

  Cl         


        

Answer 1

Nothing elegant but this could be another satisfactory answer.

merge(x = DF1, y = DF2, by = "Client", all.x=TRUE)[,c("Client","LO","CON")]

This will be useful especially when you don't need the keys that were used to join the tables in your results.

Answer 2

You can do this by subsetting the data you pass into your merge:

merge(x = DF1, y = DF2[ , c("Client", "LO")], by = "Client", all.x=TRUE)

Or you can simply delete the column after your current merge :)

Answer 3

I think it's a little simpler to use the dplyr functions select and left_join ; at least it's easier for me to understand. The join function from dplyr are made to mimic sql arguments.

 library(tidyverse)

 DF2 <- DF2 %>%
   select(client, LO)

 joined_data <- left_join(DF1, DF2, by = "Client")

You don't actually need to use the "by" argument in this case because the columns have the same name.