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Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center
Select
  • See Also
    • SelectFirst
    • Discard
    • Cases
    • Take
    • Drop
    • Reap
    • Pick
    • GatherBy
    • GroupBy
    • MatchQ
    • StringMatchQ
    • FreeQ
    • ParallelSelect
  • Related Guides
    • Elements of Lists
    • Computation with Structured Datasets
    • Functional Programming
    • Function Composition & Operator Forms
    • Database-Like Operations on Datasets
    • List Manipulation
    • Tabular Objects
    • Handling Arrays of Data
    • Associations
    • Conditionals
    • Language Overview
    • Numerical Data
    • Tabular Transformation
  • Tech Notes
    • Selecting Parts of Expressions with Functions
    • See Also
      • SelectFirst
      • Discard
      • Cases
      • Take
      • Drop
      • Reap
      • Pick
      • GatherBy
      • GroupBy
      • MatchQ
      • StringMatchQ
      • FreeQ
      • ParallelSelect
    • Related Guides
      • Elements of Lists
      • Computation with Structured Datasets
      • Functional Programming
      • Function Composition & Operator Forms
      • Database-Like Operations on Datasets
      • List Manipulation
      • Tabular Objects
      • Handling Arrays of Data
      • Associations
      • Conditionals
      • Language Overview
      • Numerical Data
      • Tabular Transformation
    • Tech Notes
      • Selecting Parts of Expressions with Functions

Select[data,crit]

picks out all elements ei of data for which crit[ei] is True.

Select[data,critprop]

returns the property prop of the selected elements.

Select[data,crit,n]

picks out the first n elements for which crit[ei] is True.

Select[crit]

represents an operator form of Select that can be applied to an expression.

Details
Details and Options Details and Options
Examples  
Basic Examples  
Scope  
Basic Uses  
Input Data  
Property Forms  
Applications  
Properties & Relations  
Possible Issues  
See Also
Tech Notes
Related Guides
Related Links
History
Cite this Page
BUILT-IN SYMBOL
  • See Also
    • SelectFirst
    • Discard
    • Cases
    • Take
    • Drop
    • Reap
    • Pick
    • GatherBy
    • GroupBy
    • MatchQ
    • StringMatchQ
    • FreeQ
    • ParallelSelect
  • Related Guides
    • Elements of Lists
    • Computation with Structured Datasets
    • Functional Programming
    • Function Composition & Operator Forms
    • Database-Like Operations on Datasets
    • List Manipulation
    • Tabular Objects
    • Handling Arrays of Data
    • Associations
    • Conditionals
    • Language Overview
    • Numerical Data
    • Tabular Transformation
  • Tech Notes
    • Selecting Parts of Expressions with Functions
    • See Also
      • SelectFirst
      • Discard
      • Cases
      • Take
      • Drop
      • Reap
      • Pick
      • GatherBy
      • GroupBy
      • MatchQ
      • StringMatchQ
      • FreeQ
      • ParallelSelect
    • Related Guides
      • Elements of Lists
      • Computation with Structured Datasets
      • Functional Programming
      • Function Composition & Operator Forms
      • Database-Like Operations on Datasets
      • List Manipulation
      • Tabular Objects
      • Handling Arrays of Data
      • Associations
      • Conditionals
      • Language Overview
      • Numerical Data
      • Tabular Transformation
    • Tech Notes
      • Selecting Parts of Expressions with Functions

Select

Select[data,crit]

picks out all elements ei of data for which crit[ei] is True.

Select[data,critprop]

returns the property prop of the selected elements.

Select[data,crit,n]

picks out the first n elements for which crit[ei] is True.

Select[crit]

represents an operator form of Select that can be applied to an expression.

Details

  • Select keeps the elements for which the given criterion crit is True.
  • The data can have the following additional forms and interpretations:
  • {e1,e2,…}list of values »
    f[e1,e2,…]expression with any head f »
    Association[…]association of values »
    QuantityArray[…]quantity array or other structured array
    Tabular[…]type‐consistent tabular data »
    TabularColumn[…]type‐consistent column data »
    Dataset[…]general hierarchical data
  • The property prop can have the following forms and interpretations:
  • "Element"the selected values »
    "Index"indices of the selected values »
    "BitVectorMask"Boolean mask returning True for selected values and False otherwise »
    {prop1,prop2,…}a list of multiple forms »
    Allan association giving element, index and bit vector mask »
  • Select[crit][data] is equivalent to Select[data,crit].
  • Parallelize[Select[data,crit]] or ParallelSelect[data,crit] computes Select[data,crit] in parallel on all subkernels. »

Examples

open all close all

Basic Examples  (6)

Select elements that are even:

Return the indices of the selected elements:

Return only the first expression selected:

Use the operator form of Select:

Select operates on values in an Association:

Select rows in a Tabular object:

Scope  (15)

Basic Uses  (5)

Find pairs containing x:

Find up to 2 pairs containing x:

Fewer than the requested elements may be returned:

Use a pure function to test each element:

Use an operator form as selection criterion:

Use Select in operator form:

Input Data  (5)

Select works with any head, not just List:

Select works on values in Association:

Select works with SparseArray objects:

The result may be a list if it is not sparse:

Select works with TabularColumn objects:

Select all dates in November:

The distribution of the dates is uniform:

Use Select on a Tabular object with named columns:

Select rows with last column date being a business day:

Property Forms  (5)

Return the selected elements:

Return the indices of the selected elements:

Return the Boolean mask of the data:

Return two forms:

Return the association with all the properties:

Applications  (7)

Select numbers up to 100 that equal 1 modulo both 3 and 5:

Select 4-tuples that read the same in reverse:

Find the first four 3×3 matrices of 0s and 1s that have determinant 1:

Select eigenvalues that lie within the unit circle:

Find built-in Wolfram Language objects whose names are less than 3 characters long:

Select numeric quantities from a product:

Find an approximation to by finding the proportion of points that lie within a disk:

Properties & Relations  (4)

Select is complementary to Discard:

Select is similar to Cases except that it uses a function instead of a pattern:

Select the lists that have sum of elements less than 10:

Use Cases to get the same result:

Select elements that are even:

Use GatherBy to separate odd and even elements:

Use GroupBy to construct an association explicitly containing as keys the results of the criterion:

Compute Select in parallel:

Possible Issues  (2)

Select picks out elements for which applying the criterion explicitly yields True:

The symbolic object x is not included in either case, since neither inequality gives True:

The head of the input expression is only preserved for the default "Element" property:

See Also

SelectFirst  Discard  Cases  Take  Drop  Reap  Pick  GatherBy  GroupBy  MatchQ  StringMatchQ  FreeQ  ParallelSelect

Function Repository: SelectPositions  SelectIndices  Discard  IncrementalParallelSelect

Tech Notes

    ▪
  • Selecting Parts of Expressions with Functions

Related Guides

    ▪
  • Elements of Lists
  • ▪
  • Computation with Structured Datasets
  • ▪
  • Functional Programming
  • ▪
  • Function Composition & Operator Forms
  • ▪
  • Database-Like Operations on Datasets
  • ▪
  • List Manipulation
  • ▪
  • Tabular Objects
  • ▪
  • Handling Arrays of Data
  • ▪
  • Associations
  • ▪
  • Conditionals
  • ▪
  • Language Overview
  • ▪
  • Numerical Data
  • ▪
  • Tabular Transformation

Related Links

  • Fast Introduction for Programmers: Functionals & Operators
  • An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language : Tests and Conditionals
  • An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language : Expressions and Their Structure
  • An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language : Natural Language Understanding
  • An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language : Datasets
  • NKS|Online  (A New Kind of Science)

History

Introduced in 1988 (1.0) | Updated in 2003 (5.0) ▪ 2014 (10.0) ▪ 2025 (14.2)

Wolfram Research (1988), Select, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Select.html (updated 2025).

Text

Wolfram Research (1988), Select, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Select.html (updated 2025).

CMS

Wolfram Language. 1988. "Select." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2025. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Select.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (1988). Select. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Select.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_select, author="Wolfram Research", title="{Select}", year="2025", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Select.html}", note=[Accessed: 04-February-2026]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2025_select, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={Select}, year={2025}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Select.html}, note=[Accessed: 04-February-2026]}

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