r get variable name that has maximum

Question

I've searched online for a while now but not really finding answers to this specific question. maybe im not using the right key words... but if there's already a thread on this question, please direct me to it!

so let's say the data looks like this:

a = 3 b = 5

now i want to find out which one is larger, so i do:

max(a,b)

this will only return me the "5", but i want it to return "b" i tried using which() but it keep saying "which is not logical" i also tried deparse() but i get a string of "5"

thanks for any help in advance!

alwaysaskingquestions · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-20 00:01:55Z

2

thanks andrewelamb for a great start on the answer. i changed the code a bit to produce the right answer i was looking for:

`a = 3
 b = 5
 v_name = ["a","b"]
 v_name[which.max(c(a,b))]`

hope it helps anyone else who has this problem as well in the future

answered Feb 20, 2016 at 0:01

alwaysaskingquestions

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andrewelamb · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-19 23:54:38Z

0

a <- 5
b <- 4
vector <- c(a,b)
which.max(vector)
vector[which.max(vector)]

answered Feb 19, 2016 at 23:54

andrewelamb

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2 Comments

alwaysaskingquestions Over a year ago

thank you very much! one thing i'd like to point out is, the a & b passed into the vector should be strings. but when passing into the which.max() should be numbers.

andrewelamb Over a year ago

I misunderstood, I think John's got it above

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:23:17Z

0

A basic approach to get variable name is implemented as myfunc, everything else is concise:

myfunc <- function(v1) {
  deparse(substitute(v1))
}
a=3
b=5
ifelse(max(a,b),myfunc(a),myfunc(b))

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:23

CommunityBot

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answered Feb 19, 2016 at 23:59

John_West

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2 Comments

alwaysaskingquestions Over a year ago

what an interesting way to approach this. :)

John_West Over a year ago

However, both approaches need one element for each variable to be defined. My: myfunc(variable) (conditional function call), yours: "variable" (in vector) ;)

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