[R] Maintain Spaces and Parentheses in Variable Names

Greg Snow Greg.Snow at imail.org
Sat Jan 10 01:10:23 CET 2009


You may also want to look at the label function (and friends) from the Hmisc package.  This gives a way to use short, "correct" names for the variables, but have a longer, more descriptive label to use in plots.

-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Cloudy56
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 11:42 AM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] Maintain Spaces and Parentheses in Variable Names
> 
> 
> Thank you very much.  That certainly worked.  Somehow I did not see
> that when
> reading the help file, nor could I find it via Google search so I
> appreciate
> your help!   -- JC
> 
> 
> Henrique Dallazuanna wrote:
> >
> > Try this:
> >
> > read.table(...., check.names = FALSE)
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Cloudy56 <clough.jonathan at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Is there any way to maintain spaces, slashes, and parentheses in
> variable
> >> names when reading these into R?
> >>
> >> Of course, read.table converts these to periods.  However, I know
> that
> >> it's
> >> not strictly illegal to have these characters in variable names as I
> am
> >> able
> >> to add them using the "variable editor" portion of the "data
> editor."
> >>
> >> I need to batch produce dozens of histograms for reporting purposes
> and
> >> my
> >> data is loaded with special characters e.g. "Historic Trend (mm/yr)"
> >> Adding "Historic.Trend..mm.yr." to my plots is not acceptable for
> >> reporting
> >> purposes.  Do I really need to manually label all of my plots each
> time I
> >> produce them in R or manually change the variable names in the Data
> >> Editor?
> >>
> >> Any help that anyone may be able to provide to allow me to read data
> >> without
> >> "corrupting" my variable labels would be appreciated.  (Forgive me
> if
> >> this
> >> is a dumb question, first day in R.)
> >> --
> >> View this message in context:
> >> http://www.nabble.com/Maintain-Spaces-and-Parentheses-in-Variable-
> Names-tp21377255p21377255.html
> >> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Henrique Dallazuanna
> > Curitiba-Paraná-Brasil
> > 25° 25' 40" S 49° 16' 22" O
> >
> > 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> >
> >
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Maintain-Spaces-
> and-Parentheses-in-Variable-Names-tp21377255p21377996.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-
> guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.


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