Extending Suffixes in Merge to All Non-by Columns

Question

suffixes in merge works only on common column names. Is there anyway to extend this to the rest of the columns as well without manually updating columns before the merge?

That is -

df1 <- data.table(
a = c(1,2,3,4,5,6),
b = c('a','b','f','e','r','h'),
d = c('q','l','o','n','q','z')
)

df2 <- data.table(
a = c(1,2,3,4,5,6),
d = c('q','l','o','n','q','z')
)

colnames(merge(df1,df2, by = 'a', suffixes = c("1","2")))
#[1] "a"  "b"  "d1" "d2" what it does
#[1] "a"  "b1" "d1" "d2" what I'd like it to do

The current way I'm handling this resembles @mrip's answer.

df1 <- data.table(
a = c(1,2,3,4,5,6),
b = c('a','b','f','e','r','h'),
r = c('a','b','f','e','r','h'),
d = c('q','l','o','n','q','z')
)

df2 <- data.table(
a = c(1,2,3,4,5,6),
c = c('a','b','f','e','r','h'),
q = c('a','b','f','e','r','h'),
d = c('q','l','o','n','q','z')
)

dfmerge <- (merge(df1,df2, by = c("a"), suffixes = c("1","2")))

setnames(
dfmerge,
setdiff(names(df1),names(df2)),
paste0(setdiff(names(df1),names(df2)),"1")
)

setnames(
dfmerge,
setdiff(names(df2),names(df1)),
paste0(setdiff(names(df2),names(df1)),"2")
)

colnames(dfmerge)
#[1] "a"  "b1" "r1" "d1" "c2" "q2" "d2"

Answer 1

A simple solution:

mrg<-(merge(df1,df2, by = 'a', suffixes = c("1","2")))
setnames(mrg,paste0(names(mrg),ifelse(names(mrg) %in% setdiff(names(df1),names(df2)),"1","")))
setnames(mrg,paste0(names(mrg),ifelse(names(mrg) %in% setdiff(names(df2),names(df1)),"2","")))

> names(mrg)
[1] "a"  "b1" "d1" "d2"

Edit: thanks to comments by Ricardo Saporta for cleaning this up considerably and teaching me a few new tips!