The tail() is a built-in R function “used to display the last n rows in the input data frame”.
Syntax
tail(x, n)
Parameters
x: It is an input dataset / dataframe.
n: It is the number of rows that the function should display.
Return value
The tail() function returns the last n rows of the dataset.
Example 1: The tail() function with data frame
Let’s get the last three rows of the data frame using the tail() function.
df <- data.frame(c1 = c("a", "b", "c", "d"),
c2 = c("e", "f", "g", "h"),
c3 = c("i", "j", "k", "l"),
c4 = c("m", "n", "o", "p"),
c5 = c("q", "r", "s", "t"))
df
cat("Last two rows of data frame", "\n")
tail(df, 2)
Output
c1 c2 c3 c4 c5
1 a e i m q
2 b f j n r
3 c g k o s
4 d h l p t
Last two rows of data frame
c1 c2 c3 c4 c5
3 c g k o s
4 d h l p t
While using the tail() function, we passed 2: a positive integer as an argument, which indicates the last 2 parts or, in our case, the first two rows of the data frame.
Example 2: The tail() function with Vector
Applying the tail() function on a Vector will return the number of elements equal to the n parameter of the tail() function.
rv <- 1:10
rv
cat("Last five integers of vector", "\n")
tail(rv, 5)
Output
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Last five integers of vector
[1] 6 7 8 9 10
In this example, the n parameter of the tail() function is 5, which means it will return the last five elements of the vector, which it did in the output.
Example 3: The tail() function with Matrix
Fetch the last 2 rows of the Matrix using the tail() function.
rv <- 1:15
mtrx <- matrix(rv, nrow = 5, ncol = 3)
mtrx
cat("Using tail() function to get the last 2 rows", "\n")
tail(mtrx, 2)
Output
[,1] [,2] [,3]
[1,] 1 6 11
[2,] 2 7 12
[3,] 3 8 13
[4,] 4 9 14
[5,] 5 10 15
Using tail() function to get the last 2 rows
[,1] [,2] [,3]
[4,] 4 9 14
[5,] 5 10 15
In this example, we used the tail() function and passed the Matrix and a number of rows as arguments, and it returns the Matrix with the last two rows.
Example 4: The tail() function with a built-in dataset
We will import the ChickWeight inbuilt R dataset and use the tail() function on that dataset.
df <- datasets::ChickWeight
Use the tail() function to get the last five rows of the dataset.
df <- datasets::ChickWeight
tail(df, 5)
Output
weight Time Chick Diet
574 175 14 50 4
575 205 16 50 4
576 234 18 50 4
577 264 20 50 4
578 264 21 50 4
As you can see that we only get the last five rows of the dataset.
That is it.

Krunal Lathiya is a Software Engineer with over eight years of experience. He has developed a strong foundation in computer science principles and a passion for problem-solving. In addition, Krunal has excellent knowledge of Data Science and Machine Learning, and he is an expert in R Language.