Dear All, Probably a one liner, but I am banging my head against the floor. Consider the following DF <- data.frame( x=1:10, y=10:1, z=rep(5,10), a=11:20 ) mn<-names(DF) but then I cannot retrieve a column by doing e.g, DF$mn[2] I tried to play with the quotes and so on, but so far with no avail. Any suggestion is welcome. Cheers Lorenzo