cols_merge_range: Merge two columns to a value range column

In gt: Easily Create Presentation-Ready Display Tables

Merge two columns to a value range column

Description

cols_merge_range() is a specialized variant of cols_merge(). It operates by taking a two columns that constitute a range of values (col_begin and col_end) and merges them into a single column. What results is a column containing both values separated by an em dash. The column specified in col_end is dropped from the output table.

Usage

cols_merge_range(
  data,
  col_begin,
  col_end,
  rows = everything(),
  autohide = TRUE,
  sep = NULL,
  locale = NULL
)

Arguments

data	The gt table or gt group data object ⁠obj:<gt_tbl>⁠ // required This is the gt table object that is commonly created through use of the gt() function. OR ⁠obj:<gt_group>⁠ // required This is the gt group object that is commonly created through use of the gt_group() function.
col_begin	Column to target for beginning of range ⁠<column-targeting expression>⁠ // required The column that contains values for the start of the range. While select helper functions such as starts_with() and ends_with() can be used for column targeting, it's recommended that a single column name be used. This is to ensure that exactly one column is provided here.
col_end	Column to target for end of range ⁠<column-targeting expression>⁠ // required The column that contains values for the end of the range. While select helper functions such as starts_with() and ends_with() can be used for column targeting, it's recommended that a single column name be used. This is to ensure that exactly one column is provided here.
rows	Rows to target ⁠<row-targeting expression>⁠ // default: everything() In conjunction with columns, we can specify which of their rows should participate in the merging process. The default everything() results in all rows in columns being formatted. Alternatively, we can supply a vector of row IDs within c(), a vector of row indices, or a select helper function (e.g. starts_with(), ends_with(), contains(), matches(), num_range(), and everything()). We can also use expressions to filter down to the rows we need (e.g., ⁠[colname_1] > 100 & [colname_2] < 50⁠).
autohide	Automatic hiding of the col_end column ⁠scalar<logical>⁠ // default: TRUE An option to automatically hide the column specified as col_end. Any columns with their state changed to hidden will behave the same as before, they just won't be displayed in the finalized table.
sep	Separator text for ranges ⁠scalar<character>⁠ // default: NULL (optional) The separator text that indicates the values are ranged. If a sep value is not provided then the range separator specific to the locale provided will be used (if a locale isn't specified then an en dash will be used). You can specify the use of an en dash with "--"; a triple-hyphen sequence ("---") will be transformed to an em dash. Should you want hyphens to be taken literally, the sep value can be supplied within the base I() function.
locale	Locale identifier ⁠scalar<character>⁠ // default: NULL (optional) An optional locale identifier that can be used for applying a sep pattern specific to a locale's rules. Examples include "en" for English (United States) and "fr" for French (France). We can call info_locales() as a useful reference for all of the locales that are supported. A locale ID can be also set in the initial gt() function call (where it would be used automatically by any function with a locale argument) but a locale value provided here will override that global locale.

Value

An object of class gt_tbl.

Comparison with other column-merging functions

This function could be somewhat replicated using cols_merge(), however, cols_merge_range() employs the following specialized operations for NA handling:

1. NAs in col_begin (but not col_end) result in a display of only

2. NAs in col_end (but not col_begin) result in a display of only the col_begin values only for the merged column (this is the converse of the previous)

3. NAs both in col_begin and col_end result in missing values for the merged column

Any resulting NA values in the col_begin column following the merge operation can be easily formatted using sub_missing(). Separate calls of sub_missing() can be used for the col_begin and col_end columns for finer control of the replacement values.

This function is part of a set of four column-merging functions. The other three are the general cols_merge() function and the specialized cols_merge_uncert() and cols_merge_n_pct() functions. These functions operate similarly, where the non-target columns can be optionally hidden from the output table through the hide_columns or autohide options.

Examples

Let's use a subset of the gtcars dataset to create a gt table, keeping only the model, mpg_c, and mpg_h columns. Merge the "mpg*" columns together as a single range column (which is labeled as MPG, in italics) using the cols_merge_range() function. After the merging process, the column label for the mpg_c column is updated with cols_label() to better describe the content.

gtcars |>
  dplyr::select(model, starts_with("mpg")) |>
  dplyr::slice(1:8) |>
  gt() |>
  cols_merge_range(
    col_begin = mpg_c,
    col_end = mpg_h
  ) |>
  cols_label(mpg_c = md("*MPG*"))

Function ID

5-16

Function Introduced

v0.2.0.5 (March 31, 2020)

See Also

Other column modification functions: cols_add(), cols_align(), cols_align_decimal(), cols_hide(), cols_label(), cols_label_with(), cols_merge(), cols_merge_n_pct(), cols_merge_uncert(), cols_move(), cols_move_to_end(), cols_move_to_start(), cols_nanoplot(), cols_unhide(), cols_units(), cols_width()

gt documentation built on Jan. 22, 2026, 9:07 a.m.