Passing a variable name to a function in R

Question

I\'ve noticed that quite a few packages allow you to pass symbol names that may not even be valid in the context where the function is called. I\'m wondering how this works

Answer 1

If you put the variable name between quotes when you call the function, it works:

> b <- function(data,name) { within(data,print(name)) }
> b(a, "x")
[1] "x"
    x  y
1   1  1
2   2  2
3   3  3
4   4  4
5   5  5
6   6  6
7   7  7
8   8  8
9   9  9
10 10 10