Merge multiple data tables with duplicate column names

Question

I am trying to merge (join) multiple data tables (obtained with fread from 5 csv files) to form a single data table. I get an error when I try to merge 5 data tables, but wo

Answer 1

Alternatively you could setNames for the columns before and do merge like this

dts = list(DT1, DT2, DT3, DT4, DT5)
names(dts) = paste('DT', c(1:5), sep = '')    

dtlist = lapply(names(dts),function(i) 
         setNames(dts[[i]], c('x', paste('y',i,sep = '.'))))

Reduce(function(...) merge(..., all = T), dtlist)

#   x y.DT1 y.DT2 y.DT3 y.DT4 y.DT5
#1: a    10    11    12    13    14
#2: b    11    12    13    14    15
#3: c    12    13    14    15    16
#4: d    13    14    15    16    17
#5: e    14    15    16    17    18
#6: f    15    16    17    18    19