How to remove columns in SpatialPolygonsDataFrame in R?

If you have a spatial polygon data frame (SPDF) and you would want to remove some columns, how do you do it?  You can use R to remove columns in SpatialPolygonsDataFrame .

Use the syntax object_ name[,-(1:10)] to remove columns 1 to 10 or object_name[,-c(1,10)] to drop columns 1 and 10.

require(maptools)

#load shapefile from maptools package

 
w <- readShapeSpatial(system.file("shapes/sample.shp", package="maptools")[1],
                   IDvar="FIPSNO", proj4string=CRS("+proj=longlat +ellps=clrk66"))

class(xx) #check the object class

 
#[1] "SpatialPolygonsDataFrame"
#attr(,"package")
#[1] "sp"

#remove columns 1 to 10 

ss <- w[,-(1:10)]

head(ss@data) 

#or use column names to remove them 

rem <- c("name1","name2") # list of column names
final <- rem[,!(names(rem) %in% drops)] #remove columns "name1" and "name2"