Avoiding error when using rename in dplyr and column doesn't exist

Question

Is there a clever way to use the rename function in dplyr when in some instances the column to be renamed doesn't exist?

For example, I would like the following not to result in an error

mtcars%>%rename(miles_per_gallon=mpg,missing_varible=foo) 

(results in this: Error: Unknown variables: foo.)

but rather the dataframe with all possible renaming done.

Currently I am explicitly checking that the specific column exists before renaming

Thanks

Iain

Answer 1

Perhaps not the intention of the designers, but you can utilize the scoped verb rename_all and the dplyr function recode, which takes one or more key value pairs like old_name = "New Name".

library(dplyr)  rename_all(iris, recode, Sepal.Length = "sepal_length", cyl = "cylinder") #     sepal_length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width    Species # 1            5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2     setosa # 2            4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2     setosa # 3            4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2     setosa # 4            4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2     setosa # 5            5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2     setosa # 6            5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4     setosa # 7            4.6         3.4          1.4         0.3     setosa # 8            5.0         3.4          1.5         0.2     setosa # 9            4.4         2.9          1.4         0.2     setosa