Check if data frame exists

Question

What is the preferred way to check that data frame exists given you have data frame name as string? I can think of:

df_name <- 'iris'

# Option 1
tryCatch(is.data.frame(get(df_name)), error=function(cond) FALSE)

# Option 2
if (exists(df_name)) is.data.frame(get(df_name)) else FALSE

Answer 1

The second option can be shortened to

exists(df_name) && is.data.frame(get(df_name))

The operator && allows lazy evaluation, i.e., the second statement is only evaluated if the first one returns TRUE.

Answer 2

exists("df_name") would give a TRUE (if the data frame exist) and FALSE (if it doesn't). So why bother? The trycatch statement in the first response did not work. It's output was FALSE all the time.