purrr包中有几个选项没有被提到:

Pluck和assign_in可以很好地使用嵌套值，你可以使用名称和/或索引的组合来访问它:

library(purrr)

l <- list("a" = 1:2, "b" = 3:4, "d" = list("e" = 5:6, "f" = 7:8))

# select values (by name and/or index)
all.equal(pluck(l, "d", "e"), pluck(l, 3, "e"), pluck(l, 3, 1))
[1] TRUE

# or if element location stored in a vector use !!!
pluck(l, !!! as.list(c("d", "e")))
[1] 5 6

# remove values (modifies in place)
pluck(l, "d", "e") <- NULL

# assign_in to remove values with name and/or index (does not modify in place)
assign_in(l, list("d", 1), NULL)
$a
[1] 1 2

$b
[1] 3 4

$d
$d$f
[1] 7 8

或者你可以通过分配zap()或NULL使用modify_list删除值:

all.equal(list_modify(l, a = zap()), list_modify(l, a = NULL))
[1] TRUE

你可以使用带有discard和keep的谓词函数来删除或保留元素:

# remove numeric elements
discard(l, is.numeric)
$d
$d$e
[1] 5 6

$d$f
[1] 7 8

# keep numeric elements
keep(l, is.numeric)
$a
[1] 1 2

$b
[1] 3 4

如果你不想就地修改列表(例如，将一个元素传递给一个函数)，你可以使用索引:负索引表示“不包括这个元素”。

x <- list("a", "b", "c", "d", "e"); # example list

x[-2];       # without 2nd element

x[-c(2, 3)]; # without 2nd and 3rd

同样，逻辑索引向量也很有用:

x[x != "b"]; # without elements that are "b"

这也适用于数据框架:

df <- data.frame(number = 1:5, name = letters[1:5])

df[df$name != "b", ];     # rows without "b"

df[df$number %% 2 == 1, ] # rows with odd numbers only

如果您想避免数字索引，可以使用

a <- setdiff(names(a),c("name1", ..., "namen"))

从a中删除名字namea…namen，这适用于列表

> l <- list(a=1,b=2)
> l[setdiff(names(l),"a")]
$b
[1] 2

对于向量也是一样

> v <- c(a=1,b=2)
> v[setdiff(names(v),"a")]
b 
2

rlist包(http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rlist/index.html)用于处理各种列表操作。

示例(http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rlist/vignettes/Filtering.html):

library(rlist)
devs <- 
  list(
    p1=list(name="Ken",age=24,
      interest=c("reading","music","movies"),
      lang=list(r=2,csharp=4,python=3)),
    p2=list(name="James",age=25,
      interest=c("sports","music"),
      lang=list(r=3,java=2,cpp=5)),
    p3=list(name="Penny",age=24,
      interest=c("movies","reading"),
      lang=list(r=1,cpp=4,python=2)))

list.remove(devs, c("p1","p2"))

结果:

# $p3
# $p3$name
# [1] "Penny"
# 
# $p3$age
# [1] 24
# 
# $p3$interest
# [1] "movies"  "reading"
# 
# $p3$lang
# $p3$lang$r
# [1] 1
# 
# $p3$lang$cpp
# [1] 4
# 
# $p3$lang$python
# [1] 2

在命名列表的情况下，我发现这些helper函数很有用

member <- function(list,names){
    ## return the elements of the list with the input names
    member..names <- names(list)
    index <- which(member..names %in% names)
    list[index]    
}


exclude <- function(list,names){
     ## return the elements of the list not belonging to names
     member..names <- names(list)
     index <- which(!(member..names %in% names))
    list[index]    
}  
aa <- structure(list(a = 1:10, b = 4:5, fruits = c("apple", "orange"
)), .Names = c("a", "b", "fruits"))

> aa
## $a
##  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10

## $b
## [1] 4 5

## $fruits
## [1] "apple"  "orange"


> member(aa,"fruits")
## $fruits
## [1] "apple"  "orange"


> exclude(aa,"fruits")
## $a
##  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10

## $b
## [1] 4 5

我想补充的是，如果它是一个命名列表，你可以简单地使用。

l <- list(a = 1, b = 2)    
> within(l, rm(a))
$b
[1] 2

所以你可以覆盖原来的列表

l <- within(l, rm(a)) 

从列表l中删除名为a的元素。