remove_empty: Remove empty rows and/or columns from a data.frame or matrix.

In janitor: Simple Tools for Examining and Cleaning Dirty Data

Remove empty rows and/or columns from a data.frame or matrix.

Description

Removes all rows and/or columns from a data.frame or matrix that are composed entirely of NA values.

Usage

remove_empty(dat, which = c("rows", "cols"), cutoff = 1, quiet = TRUE)

Arguments

dat	the input data.frame or matrix.
which	one of "rows", "cols", or c("rows", "cols"). Where no value of which is provided, defaults to removing both empty rows and empty columns, declaring the behavior with a printed message.
cutoff	What fraction (>0 to <=1) of rows or columns must be empty to be removed?
quiet	Should messages be suppressed (TRUE) or printed (FALSE) indicating the summary of empty columns or rows removed?

Value

Returns the object without its missing rows or columns.

See Also

remove_constant() for removing constant columns.

Other remove functions: remove_constant()

Examples

# not run:
# dat %>% remove_empty("rows")
# addressing a common untidy-data scenario where we have a mixture of
# blank values in some (character) columns and NAs in others:
library(dplyr)
dd <- tibble(x=c(LETTERS[1:5],NA,rep("",2)),
             y=c(1:5,rep(NA,3)))
# remove_empty() drops row 5 (all NA) but not 6 and 7 (blanks + NAs)
dd %>% remove_empty("rows")
# solution: preprocess to convert whitespace/empty strings to NA,
# _then_ remove empty (all-NA) rows
dd %>% mutate(across(is.character,~na_if(trimws(.),""))) %>%
   remove_empty("rows")

janitor documentation built on April 12, 2025, 9:16 a.m.