Move one or more columns

On those occasions where you need to move columns this way or that way, we can make use of the cols_move() function. While it's true that the movement of columns can be done upstream of gt, it is much easier and less error prone to use the function provided here. The movement procedure here takes one or more specified columns (in the columns argument) and places them to the right of a different column (the after argument). The ordering of the columns to be moved is preserved, as is the ordering of all other columns in the table.

Usage

cols_move(data, columns, after)

Arguments

data

The gt table data object

obj:<gt_tbl> // required

This is the gt table object that is commonly created through use of the gt() function.

columns

Columns to target

<column-targeting expression> // required

The columns for which the moving operations should be applied. Can either be a series of column names provided in c(), a vector of column indices, or a select helper function (e.g. starts_with(), ends_with(), contains(), matches(), num_range(), and everything(). The columns move as a group to a different position. The order of the remaining columns will be preserved.

after

Column used as anchor

<column-targeting expression> // required

The column used to anchor the insertion of the moved columns. All of the moved columns will be placed to the right of this column. While select helper functions such as starts_with() and ends_with() can be used for column targeting, it's recommended that a single column name be used. This is to ensure that exactly one column is provided here.

Value

An object of class gt_tbl.

Details

The columns supplied in columns must all exist in the table and none of them can be in the after argument. The after column must also exist and only one column should be provided here. If you need to place one or more columns at the beginning of the column series, the cols_move_to_start() function should be used. Similarly, if those columns to move should be placed at the end of the column series then use cols_move_to_end().

Examples

Use the countrypops dataset to create a gt table. We'll choose to position the population column after the country_name column by using the cols_move() function.

countrypops |>
  dplyr::select(-contains("code")) |>
  dplyr::filter(
    country_name == "Japan",
    year %in% 2012:2021
  ) |>
  gt() |>
  cols_move(
    columns = population,
    after = country_name
  ) |>
  fmt_integer(columns = population)

This image of a table was generated from the first code example in the `cols_move()` help file.

Function ID

5-9

Function Introduced

v0.2.0.5 (March 31, 2020)