Another question asked specifically how to perform multiple left joins using dplyr in R . The question was marked as a duplicate of this one so I answer here, using the 3 sample data frames below:
x <- data.frame(i = c("a","b","c"), j = 1:3, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
y <- data.frame(i = c("b","c","d"), k = 4:6, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
z <- data.frame(i = c("c","d","a"), l = 7:9, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
Update June 2018: I divided the answer in three sections representing three different ways to perform the merge. You probably want to use the purrr way if you are already using the tidyverse packages. For comparison purposes below, you’ll find a base R version using the same sample dataset.
1) Join them with reduce from the purrr package:
The purrr package provides a reduce function which has a concise syntax:
library(tidyverse)
list(x, y, z) %>% reduce(left_join, by = "i")
# A tibble: 3 x 4
# i j k l
# <chr> <int> <int> <int>
# 1 a 1 NA 9
# 2 b 2 4 NA
# 3 c 3 5 7
You can also perform other joins, such as a full_join or inner_join:
list(x, y, z) %>% reduce(full_join, by = "i")
# A tibble: 4 x 4
# i j k l
# <chr> <int> <int> <int>
# 1 a 1 NA 9
# 2 b 2 4 NA
# 3 c 3 5 7
# 4 d NA 6 8
list(x, y, z) %>% reduce(inner_join, by = "i")
# A tibble: 1 x 4
# i j k l
# <chr> <int> <int> <int>
# 1 c 3 5 7
2) dplyr::left_join() with base R Reduce():
list(x,y,z) %>%
Reduce(function(dtf1,dtf2) left_join(dtf1,dtf2,by="i"), .)
# i j k l
# 1 a 1 NA 9
# 2 b 2 4 NA
# 3 c 3 5 7
3) Base R merge() with base R Reduce():
And for comparison purposes, here is a base R version of the left join based on Charles’s answer.
Reduce(function(dtf1, dtf2) merge(dtf1, dtf2, by = "i", all.x = TRUE),
list(x,y,z))
# i j k l
# 1 a 1 NA 9
# 2 b 2 4 NA
# 3 c 3 5 7