Join two tbls together

These are generic functions that dispatch to individual tbl methods - see the method documentation for details of individual data sources. x and y should usually be from the same data source, but if copy is TRUE, y will automatically be copied to the same source as x.

inner_join(x, y, by = NULL, copy = FALSE, suffix = c(".x", ".y"), ...)

left_join(x, y, by = NULL, copy = FALSE, suffix = c(".x", ".y"), ...)

right_join(x, y, by = NULL, copy = FALSE, suffix = c(".x", ".y"), ...)

full_join(x, y, by = NULL, copy = FALSE, suffix = c(".x", ".y"), ...)

semi_join(x, y, by = NULL, copy = FALSE, ...)

anti_join(x, y, by = NULL, copy = FALSE, ...)

Arguments

x, y	tbls to join
by	a character vector of variables to join by. If NULL, the default, *_join() will do a natural join, using all variables with common names across the two tables. A message lists the variables so that you can check they're right (to suppress the message, simply explicitly list the variables that you want to join). To join by different variables on x and y use a named vector. For example, by = c("a" = "b") will match x.a to y.b.
copy	If x and y are not from the same data source, and copy is TRUE, then y will be copied into the same src as x. This allows you to join tables across srcs, but it is a potentially expensive operation so you must opt into it.
suffix	If there are non-joined duplicate variables in x and y, these suffixes will be added to the output to diambiguate them. Should be a character vector of length 2.
...	other parameters passed onto methods

Join types

Currently dplyr supports four join types:

inner_join()

return all rows from x where there are matching values in y, and all columns from x and y. If there are multiple matches between x and y, all combination of the matches are returned.

left_join()

return all rows from x, and all columns from x and y. Rows in x with no match in y will have NA values in the new columns. If there are multiple matches between x and y, all combinations of the matches are returned.

right_join()

return all rows from y, and all columns from x and y. Rows in y with no match in x will have NA values in the new columns. If there are multiple matches between x and y, all combinations of the matches are returned.

semi_join()

return all rows from x where there are matching values in y, keeping just columns from x. A semi join differs from an inner join because an inner join will return one row of x for each matching row of y, where a semi join will never duplicate rows of x.

anti_join()

return all rows from x where there are not matching values in y, keeping just columns from x.

full_join()

return all rows and all columns from both x and y. Where there are not matching values, returns NA for the one missing.

Grouping

Groups are ignored for the purpose of joining, but the result preserves the grouping of x.

Examples

# "Mutating" joins add variables to the LHS
band_members %>% inner_join(band_instruments)
#> Joining, by = "name"
#> # A tibble: 2 × 3
#>    name    band  plays
#>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  John Beatles guitar
#> 2  Paul Beatles   bass
band_members %>% left_join(band_instruments)
#> Joining, by = "name"
#> # A tibble: 3 × 3
#>    name    band  plays
#>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  Mick  Stones   <NA>
#> 2  John Beatles guitar
#> 3  Paul Beatles   bass
band_members %>% right_join(band_instruments)
#> Joining, by = "name"
#> # A tibble: 3 × 3
#>    name    band  plays
#>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  John Beatles guitar
#> 2  Paul Beatles   bass
#> 3 Keith    <NA> guitar
band_members %>% full_join(band_instruments)
#> Joining, by = "name"
#> # A tibble: 4 × 3
#>    name    band  plays
#>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  Mick  Stones   <NA>
#> 2  John Beatles guitar
#> 3  Paul Beatles   bass
#> 4 Keith    <NA> guitar

# "Filtering" joins keep cases from the LHS
band_members %>% semi_join(band_instruments)
#> Joining, by = "name"
#> # A tibble: 2 × 2
#>    name    band
#>   <chr>   <chr>
#> 1  John Beatles
#> 2  Paul Beatles
band_members %>% anti_join(band_instruments)
#> Joining, by = "name"
#> # A tibble: 1 × 2
#>    name   band
#>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  Mick Stones

# To suppress the message, supply by
band_members %>% inner_join(band_instruments, by = "name")
#> # A tibble: 2 × 3
#>    name    band  plays
#>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  John Beatles guitar
#> 2  Paul Beatles   bass
# This is good practice in production code

# Use a named `by` if the join variables have different names
band_members %>% full_join(band_instruments2, by = c("name" = "artist"))
#> # A tibble: 4 × 3
#>    name    band  plays
#>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr>
#> 1  Mick  Stones   <NA>
#> 2  John Beatles guitar
#> 3  Paul Beatles   bass
#> 4 Keith    <NA> guitar
# Note that only the key from the LHS is kept