Let\'s say I have a some table, T. Assume T has 5 columns. I understand how to select any consecutive subset of columns and store them as a new table. For that I would use brack
For random columns check out ?sample
df <- data.frame(matrix(runif(25), 5))
df
# X1 X2 X3 X4 X5
#1 0.7973941 0.6142358 0.07211461 0.01478683 0.6623704
#2 0.8992845 0.8347466 0.54495115 0.52242817 0.4944838
#3 0.8695551 0.9228987 0.00838420 0.58049324 0.9256282
#4 0.1559048 0.7116077 0.08964883 0.06799828 0.3752833
#5 0.2179599 0.4533054 0.60817319 0.62235228 0.8357441
df[ ,sample(names(df), 3)]
# X5 X3 X2
#1 0.6623704 0.07211461 0.6142358
#2 0.4944838 0.54495115 0.8347466
#3 0.9256282 0.00838420 0.9228987
#4 0.3752833 0.08964883 0.7116077
#5 0.8357441 0.60817319 0.4533054