[R] Beginner Loop Question with dynamic variable names

[Peter Wolkerstorfer - CURE]

Dear all,

I have another small scripting-beginner problem which you hopefully can
help:

I compute new variables with:

# Question 1
results$q1 <- with(results, q1_1*1+ q1_2*2+ q1_3*3+ q1_4*4+ q1_5*5)
# Question 2
results$q2 <- with(results, q2_1*1+ q2_2*2+ q2_3*3+ q2_4*4+ q2_5*5)
# Question 3
results$q3 <- with(results, q3_1*1+ q3_2*2+ q3_3*3+ q3_4*4+ q3_5*5)
# Question 4
results$q4 <- with(results, q4_1*1+ q4_2*2+ q4_3*3+ q4_4*4+ q4_5*5)

This is very inefficient so I would like to do this in a loop like:

for (i in 1:20) {results$q1 <- with(results, q1_1*1+ q1_2*2+ q1_3*3+
q1_4*4+ q1_5*5)}

My question now:
How to replace the "1"-s (results$q1, q1_1...) in the variables with the
looping variable?

Here like I like it (just for illustration - of course I still miss the
function to tell R that it should append the value of i to the variable
name):

# i is the number of questions - just an illustration, I know it does
not work this way
for (i in 1:20) {results$qi <- with(results, qi_1*1+ qi_2*2+ qi_3*3+
qi_4*4+ qi_5*5)}

Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Peter


___CURE - Center for Usability Research & Engineering___
 
Peter Wolkerstorfer
Usability Engineer
Hauffgasse 3-5, 1110 Wien, Austria
 
[Tel]  +43.1.743 54 51.46
[Fax]  +43.1.743 54 51.30
 
[Mail] wolkerstorfer at cure.at
[Web]  http://www.cure.at