How to remove selected R variables without having to type their names

Question

While testing a simulation in R using randomly generated input data, I have found and fixed a few bugs and would now like to re-run the simulation with the same data, bu

Answer 1

There is a much simpler and more direct solution:

vars.to.remove <- ls()
vars.to.remove <- temp[c(1,2,14:15)]
rm(list = vars.to.remove)

Or, better yet, if you are good about variable naming schemes, you can use the following pattern matching strategy:

E.g. I name all temporary variables with the starting string "Temp." ... so, you can have Temp.Names, Temp.Values, Temp.Whatever

The following produces the list of variables that match this pattern

ls(pattern = "^Temp\\.")

So, you can remove all unneeded variables using ONE line of code, as follows:

rm(list = ls(pattern = "^Temp\\."))

Hope this helps.