How to iteratively remove columns in r? - r

Question

lets take an example dataframe with removal of variable columns:
frame <- data.frame("a" = 1:5, "b" = 2:6, "c" = 3:7, "d" = 4:8)
rem <- readline()
frame <- subset(frame, select = -c(rem))
How do I get the variable column to be removed? This is not my real code, just wanted to present my problem in a simple code. Thanks!
Edit: I am so sorry, I am really sleepy and don't know what I typed into my code, I edited it now.

Answer 1

1) Do both at once. We assume that ix contains at least one column number.
ix <- 1:2
frame[-ix]
## c d
## 1 3 4
## 2 4 5
## 3 5 6
## 4 6 7
## 5 7 8
1a) or if the case where ix is zero length, ix <- c(), is important we can do this. The output of this and all the rest are the same as for (1) so we won't repeat the output.
ix <- 1:2
frame[setdiff(seq_along(frame), ix)]
1b) or if we have names rather than column numbers. This works even if nms is a zero length vector in which case it returns the original data frame.
nms <- c("a", "b")
frame[setdiff(names(frame), nms)]
2) or if you need to do it iteratively remove the largest one first because if it were done in ascending order then after the first one is removed the second column is no longer the second but is the first. If we knew that ix is already sorted we could omit the sort. We have used frame_out to hold the result so that the input is not destroyed. This works even if ix is the empty vector.
ix <- 1:2
frame_out <- frame
for(i in rev(sort(ix))) frame_out <- frame_out[-i]
frame_out
3) One way to do it independent of order is to do it by name. In this case it would be possible to remove them in ascending order. This works even if ix the empty vector.
ix <- 1:2
nms <- names(frame)[ix]
frame_out <- frame
for(nm in nms) frame_out <- frame_out[-match(nm, names(frame_out))]
frame_out