Use value of function parameter when creating a data frame R

Question

I have a function and a string, "ID" is being passed in as a parameter called column. When I try to create a new data frame within the function and set a column name, I use column, but want the new column name to actually be "ID". I am having issues with doing so, as it thinks the column name should be "column" and doesn't access the string ("ID") corresponding.

Here is the function:

f <- function(column) {
new_df <- data.frame(column=c(1,2,3,4,5), names=c("Ana", "Eric", "Bob", "Katy", "Zac"))
return(new_df)
}

print(f(column="ID")

Ideally, I'd want the new data frame to look like:

ID names
1 Ana
2 Eric
3 Bob
4 Katy
5 Zac

akrun · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-30 19:11:26Z

3

Use tibble and :=

library(tibble)
f <- function(column) {
new_df <- tibble(!!column :=c(1,2,3,4,5),
         names=c("Ana", "Eric", "Bob", "Katy", "Zac"))
return(new_df)
}

-testing

> f(column = "ID")
# A tibble: 5 x 2
     ID names
  <dbl> <chr>
1     1 Ana  
2     2 Eric 
3     3 Bob  
4     4 Katy 
5     5 Zac

Or if we are using base R, then either setNames or names assignment would work

f <- function(column) {
new_df <- data.frame(column=c(1,2,3,4,5), names=c("Ana", "Eric", "Bob", "Katy", "Zac"))
names(new_df)[1] <- column
return(new_df)
}

answered Jul 30, 2021 at 19:11

akrun

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