If the phrase "some of the variable names begin with" actually turns out to be a sloppy version of "the first column name begins with", then the best solution is probably to specify fileEncoding="UTF-8-BOM" as an argument to read.csv before trying all this fix-after-the-fact work. This will also handle other non-ASCII characters properly if they are present.
On March 14, 2022 10:52:49 AM PDT, Rui Barradas <ruipbarra...@sapo.pt> wrote: >Hello, > >I have already seen those names starting with 'i..' several times but I >don't remember where nor why. >I think it has to do with encoding. Or maybe special characters. I have >the impression that the best solution was to read the data in a way as >to avoid the problem. > >Using Bert's example data set, here are base R and tidyverse solutions. > > >dat <- data.frame( > i..One = 1:3, > i..Two = letters[1:3], > ixx = 5:7) > ># base R >names(dat) <- sub("^i\\.\\.", "", names(dat)) >names(dat) > ># tidyverse >dplyr::rename_with(dat, .fn = \(x) sub("^i\\.\\.", "", x), >starts_with("i..")) > > >Hope this helps, > >Rui Barradas > >Às 16:26 de 14/03/2022, Christopher W Ryan via R-help escreveu: >> I have data coming to me from another source, in which some of the variable >> names begin with "i.." >> >> As in "i..actual_meaningful_var_name" >> >> I would like to remove the first three characters from any variable name if >> they are "i.." >> >> I'm using R on Win 10 and dplyr, so ideally I'm looking for a dplyr >> solution. Apparently I'm just not understanding how the various select, >> contains, rename_at, rename_with, and so-on dplyr expressions work. I've >> tried various arrangements of them, usually resulting in >> >> Error: `contains()` must be used within a *selecting* function. >> i See <https://tidyselect.r-lib.org/reference/faq-selection-context.html> >> >> A simple select(contains(foo)) I can do fine, to select a subset of >> variables. It's combining it with renaming that I am struggling with. >> >> Grateful for any advice. >> >> Thanks. >> >> --Chris Ryan >> >> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >> 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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >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. -- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.