how can i tell select() in dplyr that the string it is seeing is a column name in a data frame

Question

I tried searching but didn't find an answer to this question.

I'm trying to use the select statement in dplyr but am having problems when I try to send it strings. My question is, how do i tell select() that the string that it is seeing is a column name in the data frame?

e.g. this works fine

select(df.main.scaled, var1, var3) select(df.main.scaled, var2, var4) 

but this does not work:

select(df.main.scaled, names.gens[i,1], names.gens[i,2]) 

where

> names.genx <- c("var1","var2") > names.geny <- c("var3","var4") > names.gens <- cbind(names.genx, names.geny) > names.gens      names.genx names.geny [1,] "var1"     "var3"     [2,] "var2"     "var4"   

To be clear, all the strings in names.gens are column names in the data frame.

Thanks.

Answer 1

In more recent versions of dplyr, this is possible in select with one_of, as in

my_cols <- c('mpg', 'disp') mtcars %>% select(one_of(my_cols))