Remove rows with NA in one column of R DataFrame

Columns of DataFrame in R Programming Language can have empty values represented by NA. In this article, we are going to see how to remove rows with NA in one column. We will see various approaches to remove rows with NA values.

Approach

1. Create a data frame
2. Select the column based on which rows are to be removed
3. Traverse the column searching for na values
4. Select rows
5. Delete such rows using a specific method

Remove rows with NA of one column in R DataFrame Using drop_na()

drop_na() Drops rows having values equal to NA. To use this approach we need to use "tidyr" library, which can be installed.

install.packages("tidyverse")

Syntax:

drop_na(name_of_the_column)

Output:

 name maths science history
1 Ram 7 5 7
2 Geeta 8 7 NA
3 John NA 6 7
4 Paul 9 8 7
5 Cassie 10 NA NA
6 Jim 8 7 7
7 Dwight 9 8 7
 name maths science history
1 Ram 7 5 7
2 Geeta 8 7 NA
3 Paul 9 8 7
4 Cassie 10 NA NA
5 Jim 8 7 7
6 Dwight 9 8 7

Remove rows with NA of one column in R DataFrame Using is.na()

is.na() function first looks for na values in a column and then discards such rows.

Syntax:

is.na(name of the column)

Output:

 name maths science history
1 Ram 7 5 7
2 Geeta 8 7 NA
3 John NA 6 7
4 Paul 9 8 7
5 Cassie 10 NA NA
6 Jim 8 7 7
7 Dwight 9 8 7
 name maths science history
1 Ram 7 5 7
2 Geeta 8 7 NA
3 John NA 6 7
4 Paul 9 8 7
6 Jim 8 7 7
7 Dwight 9 8 7

Remove rows with NA of one column in R DataFrame Using complete.cases() 

This function functions similar to the above two methods

Syntax:

complete.cases(name of the column)

Output:

 name maths science history
1 Ram 7 5 7
2 Geeta 8 7 NA
3 John NA 6 7
4 Paul 9 8 7
5 Cassie 10 NA NA
6 Jim 8 7 7
7 Dwight 9 8 7
 name maths science history
1 Ram 7 5 7
3 John NA 6 7
4 Paul 9 8 7
6 Jim 8 7 7
7 Dwight 9 8 7