Getting names from … (dots)

Question

In improving an rbind method, I\'d like to extract the names of the objects passed to it so that I might generate unique IDs from those.

I\'ve tried

Answer 1

Using the guidance here How to use R's ellipsis feature when writing your own function?

eg substitute(list(...))

and combining with with as.character

rbind.test <- function(...) {
  .x <-  as.list(substitute(list(...)))[-1]
  as.character(.x)
 }

you can also use

rbind.test <- function(...){as.character(match.call(expand.dots = F)$...)}

Answer 2

I picked this one up from Bill Dunlap on the R Help List Serve:

rbind.test <- function(...) {
    sapply(substitute(...()), as.character)
}

I think this gives you what you want.