Is there a function like tail for columns in tibbles?

Question

I have a tibble with more than 20 columns, so when I view it in the console, only 20 columns will be shown and one will be summarized below the head of the tibble even when I maximize the window.

Is there a function like tail() for columns that shows only the last n columns?

Answer 1

You can adjust the parameters for print() for a tibble to control how much is being printed to the console. So, for example, you can control the number of rows by setting n in print and the number of columns with width. If you were to set width to Inf, then it will print all columns.

print(mtcars_tibble, n = 15, width = Inf)

Output

# A tibble: 32 × 22
  mpg...1 cyl...2 disp...3 hp...4 drat...5 wt...6 qsec...7 vs...8 am...9 gear...10 carb...11 mpg...12 cyl...13
    <dbl>   <dbl>    <dbl>  <dbl>    <dbl>  <dbl>    <dbl>  <dbl>  <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>    <dbl>    <dbl>
1    21         6      160    110     3.9    2.62     16.5      0      1         4         4     21          6
2    21         6      160    110     3.9    2.88     17.0      0      1         4         4     21          6
3    22.8       4      108     93     3.85   2.32     18.6      1      1         4         1     22.8        4
4    21.4       6      258    110     3.08   3.22     19.4      1      0         3         1     21.4        6
5    18.7       8      360    175     3.15   3.44     17.0      0      0         3         2     18.7        8
  disp...14 hp...15 drat...16 wt...17 qsec...18 vs...19 am...20 gear...21 carb...22
      <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl>   <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>
1       160     110      3.9     2.62      16.5       0       1         4         4
2       160     110      3.9     2.88      17.0       0       1         4         4
3       108      93      3.85    2.32      18.6       1       1         4         1
4       258     110      3.08    3.22      19.4       1       0         3         1
5       360     175      3.15    3.44      17.0       0       0         3         2
# … with 27 more rows

However, you could still subset this with normal base R notation to get the last n columns.

n <- 10
print(mtcars_tibble, n = 5, width = Inf)[,(ncol(mtcars_tibble)-n+1):ncol(mtcars_tibble)]

Output

# A tibble: 32 × 10
   cyl...13 disp...14 hp...15 drat...16 wt...17 qsec...18 vs...19 am...20 gear...21 carb...22
      <dbl>     <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl>   <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>
 1        6      160      110      3.9     2.62      16.5       0       1         4         4
 2        6      160      110      3.9     2.88      17.0       0       1         4         4
 3        4      108       93      3.85    2.32      18.6       1       1         4         1
 4        6      258      110      3.08    3.22      19.4       1       0         3         1
 5        8      360      175      3.15    3.44      17.0       0       0         3         2
 6        6      225      105      2.76    3.46      20.2       1       0         3         1
 7        8      360      245      3.21    3.57      15.8       0       0         3         4
 8        4      147.      62      3.69    3.19      20         1       0         4         2
 9        4      141.      95      3.92    3.15      22.9       1       0         4         2
10        6      168.     123      3.92    3.44      18.3       1       0         4         4
# … with 22 more rows

To simplify, we could create our own print function to determine the number of rows and last columns.

print_tibble <- function(x, y, z) {
  print(x, n = y, width = Inf)[,(ncol(x)-z+1):ncol(x)]
}

print_tibble(mtcars_tibble, 5, 10)