The most common way to merge two datasets is to use the left_join() function. We can see from the picture below that the key-pair matches perfectly the rows A, B, C and D from both datasets. However, E and F are left over. How do we treat these two observations? With the left_join(), we will keep all the variables in the original table and don't consider the variables that do not have a key-paired in the destination table. In our example, the variable E does not exist in table 1. Therefore, the row will be dropped. The variable F comes from the origin table; it will be kept after the left_join() and return NA in the column z. The figure below reproduces what will happen with a left_join().
left_join(df_primary, df_secondary, by ='ID')
