Just to start things off: > var.name <- c("gdp","inf","unp") > var.id <- c("w","i") > > x <- paste(var.name, rep(var.id, each=length(var.name)), sep="_") > x [1] "gdp_w" "inf_w" "unp_w" "gdp_i" "inf_i" "unp_i" >
Now the three differences: gdp_w - gdp_i inf_w - inf_i unp_w - unp_i Can be got using dwi <- dat[, x[1:3]] - dat[, x[4:6]] and the other three differences gdp - gdp_w inf - inf_w unp - unp_w by dw <- dat[, var.name] - dat[, x[1:3]] The results, in both cases, should be data frames Bill Venables. -----Original Message----- From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Serguei Kaniovski Sent: Sunday, 26 June 2011 10:01 PM To: r-help@r-project.org Subject: [R] Accessing variables in a data frame Hello My data.frame (dat) contains many variables named var.names and others named var.names_var.id For example var.name <- c("gdp","inf","unp") var.id <- c("w","i") x <- paste(var.name, rep(var.id, each=length(var.name)), sep="_") How can I access variables in the dama.frame by names listed in x, for example to compute gdp_w - gdp_i inf_w - inf_i unp_w - unp_i or gdp - gdp_w inf - inf_w unp - unp_w without needing to code each difference separately? Thanks for your help! Serguei Kaniovski [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.