R Error in rowSums & colSums – ‘x’ must be an array of at least two dimensions (2 Examples)

This tutorial shows how to handle the “error in rowSums & colSums – ‘x’ must be an array of at least two dimensions” in the R programming language.

Construction of Example Data

data(iris)                               # Load example data
iris_num <- iris[ , 1:4]
head(iris_num)
#   Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width
# 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2
# 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2
# 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2
# 4          4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2
# 5          5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2
# 6          5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4

Example 1: Replicating the Error Message – ‘x’ must be an array of at least two dimensions

rowSums(iris_num)                        # Calculate row sums
#   [1] 10.2  9.5  9.4  9.4 10.2 11.4  9.7 10.1  8.9  9.6 10.8 10.0  9.3  8.5 11.2
#  [16] 12.0 11.0 10.3 11.5 10.7 10.7 10.7  9.4 10.6 10.3  9.8 10.4 10.4 10.2  9.7
#  [31]  9.7 10.7 10.9 11.3  9.7  9.6 10.5 10.0  8.9 10.2 10.1  8.4  9.1 10.7 11.2
#  [46]  9.5 10.7  9.4 10.7  9.9 16.3 15.6 16.4 13.1 15.4 14.3 15.9 11.6 15.4 13.2
#  [61] 11.5 14.6 13.2 15.1 13.4 15.6 14.6 13.6 14.4 13.1 15.7 14.2 15.2 14.8 14.9
#  [76] 15.4 15.8 16.4 14.9 12.8 12.8 12.6 13.6 15.4 14.4 15.5 16.0 14.3 14.0 13.3
#  [91] 13.7 15.1 13.6 11.6 13.8 14.1 14.1 14.7 11.7 13.9 18.1 15.5 18.1 16.6 17.5
# [106] 19.3 13.6 18.3 16.8 19.4 16.8 16.3 17.4 15.2 16.1 17.2 16.8 20.4 19.5 14.7
# [121] 18.1 15.3 19.2 15.7 17.8 18.2 15.6 15.8 16.9 17.6 18.2 20.1 17.0 15.7 15.7
# [136] 19.1 17.7 16.8 15.6 17.5 17.8 17.4 15.5 18.2 18.2 17.2 15.7 16.7 17.3 15.8
rowSums(iris_num[ , 1])                  # Row sums for one column
# Error in rowSums(iris_num[, 1]) : 
#   'x' must be an array of at least two dimensions

Example 2: Debugging the Error Message – ‘x’ must be an array of at least two dimensions

rowSums(iris_num[ , 1, drop = FALSE])    # Using drop = FALSE
#   [1] 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5.0 5.4 4.6 5.0 4.4 4.9 5.4 4.8 4.8 4.3 5.8 5.7 5.4 5.1
#  [19] 5.7 5.1 5.4 5.1 4.6 5.1 4.8 5.0 5.0 5.2 5.2 4.7 4.8 5.4 5.2 5.5 4.9 5.0
#  [37] 5.5 4.9 4.4 5.1 5.0 4.5 4.4 5.0 5.1 4.8 5.1 4.6 5.3 5.0 7.0 6.4 6.9 5.5
#  [55] 6.5 5.7 6.3 4.9 6.6 5.2 5.0 5.9 6.0 6.1 5.6 6.7 5.6 5.8 6.2 5.6 5.9 6.1
#  [73] 6.3 6.1 6.4 6.6 6.8 6.7 6.0 5.7 5.5 5.5 5.8 6.0 5.4 6.0 6.7 6.3 5.6 5.5
#  [91] 5.5 6.1 5.8 5.0 5.6 5.7 5.7 6.2 5.1 5.7 6.3 5.8 7.1 6.3 6.5 7.6 4.9 7.3
# [109] 6.7 7.2 6.5 6.4 6.8 5.7 5.8 6.4 6.5 7.7 7.7 6.0 6.9 5.6 7.7 6.3 6.7 7.2
# [127] 6.2 6.1 6.4 7.2 7.4 7.9 6.4 6.3 6.1 7.7 6.3 6.4 6.0 6.9 6.7 6.9 5.8 6.8
# [145] 6.7 6.7 6.3 6.5 6.2 5.9

Further Resources

Have a look at the following R tutorials. They focus on similar topics as this page:

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