[R] Using string to call/manipulate an object

[David Winsemius]

On Feb 23, 2011, at 8:55 AM, Kushan Thakkar wrote:

> I am using getSymbols function from quantmod package to get price  
> data from
> internet.
>
> Currently I have:
>
> my.ticker <- "IBM"
> getSymbols(my.ticker,src="google")
>
> This  creates an xts object named my.ticker which contains  
> historical price
> data for IBM.
>
> How can I call and manipulating this xts object using my original  
> string
> my.ticker?
>
> I want to do:
> colnames(my.ticker) <- c("open","high","low","close","vol")

If you want to change the colnames (an attribute) of the object now  
named "IBM" in your global environment, then look a:

?attributes
?attr

>
> However, this does not work as my.ticker refers to the string "IBM"  
> rather
> than the xts object called IBM.
>
> Out of desperation, I have also tried:
> colnames(paste(my.ticker)) <- c("open","high","low","close","vol")
> colnames(as.xts(my.ticker)) <- c("open","high","low","close","vol")

But why are you do this??? It already has a perfectly servicable set  
of names:

 > colnames(get(my.ticker))
[1] "IBM.Open"   "IBM.High"   "IBM.Low"    "IBM.Close"  "IBM.Volume"

-- 
David.
>
> Thanks
> Kushan
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT