sqldf

You can use duplicated to do this very quickly. test[!duplicated(test$id),] Benchmarks, for the speed freaks: ju <- function() test[!duplicated(test$id),] gs1 <- function() do.call(rbind, lapply(split(test, test$id), head, 1)) gs2 <- function() do.call(rbind, lapply(split(test, test$id), `[`, 1, )) jply <- function() ddply(test,.(id),function(x) head(x,1)) jdt <- function() { testd <- as.data.table(test) setkey(testd,id) # Initial solution (slow) # testd[,lapply(.SD,function(x) … Read more