[R] Accessing an object using a string

[G.Maubach at weinwolf.de]

Hi All,

I would like to access an object using a sting.

# Create example dataset
var1 <- c(1, 2, 3)
var2 <- c(4, 5, 6)
data1 <- data.frame(var1, var2)

var3 <- c(7, 8, 9)
var4 <- c(10, 11, 12)
data2 <- data.frame(var3, var4)

save(file = "c:/temp/test.RData", list = c("data1", "data2"))

# Define function
t_load_dataset <- function(file_path,
                           file_name) {
  file_location <- file.path(file_path, file_name)
 
  print(paste0('Loading ', file_location, " ..."))
  cat("\n")
 
  object_list <- load(file = file_location,
                      envir = .GlobalEnv)
 
  print(paste(length(object_list), "dataset(s) loaded from", 
file_location))
  cat("\n")
 
  print("The following objects were loaded:")
  print(object_list)
  cat("\n")
 
  for (i in object_list) {
    print(paste0("Object '", i, "' in '", file_name, "' contains:"))
    str(i)
    names(i)  # does not work
  }
}

I have only the character vector object_list containing the names of the 
objects as strings. I would like to access the objects in object_list to 
be able to print the names of the variables within the object (usuallly a 
data frame).

Is it possible to do this? How is it done?

Kind regards

Georg