R: rename subset of variables in data frame

Question

I\'m renaming the majority of the variables in a data frame and I\'m not really impressed with my method.

Therefore, does anyone on SO have a smarter or faster way t

Answer 1

Nearly the same but without plyr:

data(mtcars)

temp.mtcars <- mtcars

carNames <- names(temp.mtcars)
modifyNames <- !(carNames %in% c("mpg", "cyl", "disp"))

names(temp.mtcars)[modifyNames] <- paste("baR.", carNames[modifyNames], sep="")

Output:

str(temp.mtcars)
'data.frame':   32 obs. of  11 variables:
$ mpg     : num  21 21 22.8 21.4 18.7 18.1 14.3 24.4 22.8 19.2 ...
$ cyl     : num  6 6 4 6 8 6 8 4 4 6 ...
$ disp    : num  160 160 108 258 360 ...
$ baR.hp  : num  110 110 93 110 175 105 245 62 95 123 ...
$ baR.drat: num  3.9 3.9 3.85 3.08 3.15 2.76 3.21 3.69 3.92 3.92 ...
$ baR.wt  : num  2.62 2.88 2.32 3.21 3.44 ...
$ baR.qsec: num  16.5 17 18.6 19.4 17 ...
$ baR.vs  : num  0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 ...
$ baR.am  : num  1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
$ baR.gear: num  4 4 4 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 ...
$ baR.carb: num  4 4 1 1 2 1 4 2 2 4 ...