[R] Convert a character string to variable names

[Ebert,Timothy Aaron]

I had thought that mtcars in "mtcars$disp" was the name of a dataframe and that "disp" was the name of a column in the dataframe. If I would make a model like horse power = displacement then "disp" would be a variable in the model and I can find values for this variable in the "disp" column in the "mtcars" dataframe. I am not sure how I would use "mtcars" as a variable.
"mtcars$disp" has no specific value, though it will have a specific value for any given row of data (assuming rows are observations).

Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: R-help <r-help-bounces using r-project.org> On Behalf Of Richard O'Keefe
Sent: Tuesday, February 8, 2022 8:17 PM
To: Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess using gmail.com>
Cc: r-help using r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] Convert a character string to variable names

[External Email]

"mtcars$disp" is not a variable name.
"mtcars" is a variable name, and
get("mtcars") will get the value of that variable assign("mtcars", ~~whatever~~) will set it.
mtcars$disp is an *expression*,
where $ is an indexing operator
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__cran.r-2Dproject.org_doc_manuals_r-2Drelease_R-2Dlang.html-23Indexing&d=DwICAg&c=sJ6xIWYx-zLMB3EPkvcnVg&r=9PEhQh2kVeAsRzsn7AkP-g&m=CI-7ZdIwlhUvhmOkVD7KJkv3IvSSWy4ix2Iz1netW81V-NUV8aOVVqyn5-fmD6cf&s=RjRC5kve6D8k59qZQYcX-PR-aA4TTu1yfLPBhHxSlWk&e=
so what you want is
> mtcars <- list(cyl=4, disp=1.8)
> eval(parse(text="mtcars$disp"))
[1] 1.8

Though it's easy to do this, it's very seldom a good idea.
The combination of parse and eval can do ANYTHING, no matter how disastrous.  Less powerful techniques are safer.
Where do these strings come from in the first place?
Why isn't it c("disp", "hp", "cyl")?

On Tue, 8 Feb 2022 at 11:56, Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess using gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I have a character string that is a vector of variable names.  I would 
> like to use those names to access the variables and create a matrix.
> I tried the following:
>
> > .x
>
> [1] "mtcars$disp" "mtcars$hp"   "mtcars$cyl"
>
> > .y <- NULL
>
> > for(i in 1:3) {
>
> + .y[i] <- c(as.name(.x[[i]]))
>
> + }
>
> > .y
>
> [[1]]
>
> `mtcars$disp`
>
>
> [[2]]
>
> `mtcars$hp`
>
>
> [[3]]
>
> `mtcars$cyl`
>
>
> But I am having trouble converting the variables in .y into a matrix.
>
>
> I tried all kinds of stuff with bquote, deparse, do.call, but no good.
>
>
> I have a feeling that it's something simple, and I'm just not seeing it.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erin
>
>
>
>
> Erin Hodgess, PhD
> mailto: erinm.hodgess using gmail.com
>
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