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Delete vertices or edges from a graph

Usage

# S3 method for class 'igraph'
e1 - e2

Arguments

e1

Left argument, see details below.

e2

Right argument, see details below.

Value

An igraph graph.

Details

The minus operator (‘-’) can be used to remove vertices or edges from the graph. The operation performed is selected based on the type of the right hand side argument:

  • If it is an igraph graph object, then the difference of the two graphs is calculated, see difference().

  • If it is a numeric or character vector, then it is interpreted as a vector of vertex ids and the specified vertices will be deleted from the graph. Example:

      g <- make_ring(10)
    V(g)$name <- letters[1:10]
    g <- g - c("a", "b")
  • If e2 is a vertex sequence (e.g. created by the V() function), then these vertices will be deleted from the graph.

  • If it is an edge sequence (e.g. created by the E() function), then these edges will be deleted from the graph.

  • If it is an object created with the vertex() (or the vertices()) function, then all arguments of vertices() are concatenated and the result is interpreted as a vector of vertex ids. These vertices will be removed from the graph.

  • If it is an object created with the edge() (or the edges()) function, then all arguments of edges() are concatenated and then interpreted as edges to be removed from the graph. Example:

      g <- make_ring(10)
    V(g)$name <- letters[1:10]
    E(g)$name <- LETTERS[1:10]
    g <- g - edge("e|f")
    g <- g - edge("H")
  • If it is an object created with the path() function, then all path() arguments are concatenated and then interpreted as a path along which edges will be removed from the graph. Example:

      g <- make_ring(10)
    V(g)$name <- letters[1:10]
    g <- g - path("a", "b", "c", "d")