R - accessing variable "name" inside a function

Question

Having 2 or more file paths like below each to be read as separate data frames

file1 = ".data/abc_123.txt"
file2 = ".data/def_324.txt"

To enable batch reading, storing these filenames in to a vector filesVector = c(file1, file2)

Inside the function used to batch read files, need to access the variable names that are in filesVector

csvToDF = function(filesVector){
  for(file in filesVector){ 
    # is there a way to extract variable names `file1` & `file2` inside here so as to create a dataframe with name of file as part of the variable for variable
    # in the above example data, it should create two data frames stored as variables `df_file1` and `df_file2`
    variable_name = read.csv(file)
  }
}

try eval(substitute(file))

user12728748
– user12728748

2020-05-23 15:17:48 +00:00
Commented May 23, 2020 at 15:17 — user12728748
– user12728748, Commented May 23, 2020 at 15:17

Jan · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-23 15:18:29Z

1

Doing it the way you do the variable names get lost. But as workaround you could name vector elements before you call the function:

names(filesVector) <- c("file1", "file2")

Now you should be able to access these inside the function simply with names(filesVector) or names(filesVector[1]).

answered May 23, 2020 at 15:18

Jan

5,3743 gold badges32 silver badges46 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

R - accessing variable "name" inside a function

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related