R: specifying variable name in function parameter for a function of general (universal) use

Question

Here is my small function and data. Please note that I want to design a function not personal use for general use.

dataf <- data.frame (A= 1:10, B= 21:         


        

Answer 1

You could always go the (horrors) parse() route:

Rgames: foo<- data.frame(one=1:5,two=6:10)
Rgames: bar <- function(y) eval(parse(text=paste('foo$',y,sep='')))  

Which is to say, inside your function, grab the arguments to the function and build up the internal data frame or pairs of vectors of data you want using the eval(parse(...)) setup.