[R] Dynamic reference, right-hand side of function

Ek Esawi
Mon, 04 Dec 2017 14:47:14 -0000

Hi Love,

I am not sure if I understand your question and it will help if you
provided a sample data frame, sample of your code and sample of your output
and the output you desire. Having said that, I think you could use cbind to
join all datasets into a matrix and use the apply family of functions to
achieve what you are after.

On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 6:33 AM, Love Bohman <love.bohman at
sociology.su.se>
wrote:

> Hi R-users!
> Being new to R, and a fairly advanced Stata-user, I guess part of my
> problem is that my mindset (and probably my language as well) is wrong.
> Anyway, I have what I guess is a rather simple problem, that I now without
> success spent days trying to solve.
>
> I have a bunch of datasets imported from Stata that is labelled aa_2000
> aa_2001 aa_2002, etc. Each dataset is imported as a matrix, and consists of
> one column only. The columns consists of integer numbers. I need to convert
> the data to vectors, which I found several ways to do. I use, for example:
> aa_2000 <- as.numeric(aa_2000[,1])
> However, when trying to automate the task, so I don't have to write a
line
> of code for each dataset, I get stuck. Since I'm a Stata user, my first
> attempt is trying to make a loop in order to loop over all datasets.
> However, I manage to write a loop that works for the left-hand side of the
> syntax, but not for the right-hand side.
> I have included some examples from my struggles to solve the issue below,
> what they all have in common is that I don't manage to call for any
"macro"
> (is that only a Stata-word?) in the right hand side of the functions. When
> I try to replace the static reference with a dynamic one (like in the
> left-hand side), the syntax just doesn't work.
>
> I would very much appreciate some help with this issue!
> All the best,
> Love
>
> year <- 2002
> dataname <- paste0("aa_",year)
> assign(paste0(dataname), as.numeric(aa_2002[,1]))
>
> year <- 2003
> assign(paste0("aa_",year), as.numeric(aa_2003))
>
> year <- 2005
> assign(paste0("aa_",year), aa_2005[,1])
>
> list1 <- c(2000:2007)
> list1[c(7)]
> assign(paste0("aa_",list1[c(7)]), as.numeric(paste0(aa_2006)))
>
>
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>
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