R help - May 2026 - From object name strings to objects

I want to stack several dataframes using their names as strings.

df1 <- data.frame(name = "normal", x = rnorm(5))
df2 <- data.frame(name = "uniform", x = runif(5))
df3 <- data.frame(name = "binomial", x = rbinom(5, 2, 0.5))
mynames <- c("df1", "df2", "df3")

newdf <- some_function(mynames)

# Desired result
newdf <- do.call(rbind, list(df1, df2, df3))

How can this be done?

Thanks,
Naresh

See ?mget

On Tue, May 19, 2026, 6:49 AM Naresh Gurbuxani <naresh_gurbuxani at
hotmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I want to stack several dataframes using their names as strings.
>
> df1 <- data.frame(name = "normal", x = rnorm(5))
> df2 <- data.frame(name = "uniform", x = runif(5))
> df3 <- data.frame(name = "binomial", x = rbinom(5, 2, 0.5))
> mynames <- c("df1", "df2", "df3")
>
> newdf <- some_function(mynames)
>
> # Desired result
> newdf <- do.call(rbind, list(df1, df2, df3))
>
> How can this be done?
>
> Thanks,
> Naresh
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
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?s 11:48 de 19/05/2026, Naresh Gurbuxani escreveu:
> 
> I want to stack several dataframes using their names as strings.
> 
> df1 <- data.frame(name = "normal", x = rnorm(5))
> df2 <- data.frame(name = "uniform", x = runif(5))
> df3 <- data.frame(name = "binomial", x = rbinom(5, 2, 0.5))
> mynames <- c("df1", "df2", "df3")
> 
> newdf <- some_function(mynames)
> 
> # Desired result
> newdf <- do.call(rbind, list(df1, df2, df3))
> 
> How can this be done?
> 
> Thanks,
> Naresh
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Hello,

Something like this?



fun <- function(df_names, pattern, envir = .GlobalEnv) {
   if(missing(df_names)) {
     if(missing(pattern)) {
       obj_names <- ls(envir = envir)
       df_list <- Filter(\(x) is(x, "data.frame"), mget(obj_names,
envir
= envir))
     } else {
       df_names <- ls(pattern = pattern, envir = envir)
       df_list <- mget(df_names, envir = envir)
     }
   } else df_list <- mget(df_names, envir = envir)
   res <- do.call(rbind, df_list)
   row.names(res) <- NULL
   res
}

df1 <- data.frame(name = "normal", x = rnorm(5))
df2 <- data.frame(name = "uniform", x = runif(5))
df3 <- data.frame(name = "binomial", x = rbinom(5, 2, 0.5))
mynames <- c("df1", "df2", "df3")

fun()
fun(mynames)
fun(pattern = "df")


Hope this helps,

Rui Barradas

This goal is flawed and excessively complicated to accomplish... what if someone
does this:

x <- 5
mynames <- c("df1", "df2", "x")

then they try rbinding a scalar with the data frames.

Just re-frame your question to pull source data frames from a dedicated list of
possible distributions instead and it becomes simple to implement and easy to
re-use:

dists <- list()
dists [["normal"]] <- data.frame(name = "normal", x =
rnorm(5))
dists [["uniform"]]  <- data.frame(name = "uniform", x =
runif(5))
dists [["binomial"]]  <- data.frame(name = "binomial", x
= rbinom(5, 2, 0.5))
mynames <- c("normal", "binomial")

some_function <- function(pool, nms) {
  do.call(rbind, pool[nms])
}

newdf <- some_function(dists, mynames)

newdf


On May 19, 2026 3:48:56 AM PDT, Naresh Gurbuxani <naresh_gurbuxani at
hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>I want to stack several dataframes using their names as strings.
>
>df1 <- data.frame(name = "normal", x = rnorm(5))
>df2 <- data.frame(name = "uniform", x = runif(5))
>df3 <- data.frame(name = "binomial", x = rbinom(5, 2, 0.5))
>mynames <- c("df1", "df2", "df3")
>
>newdf <- some_function(mynames)
>
># Desired result
>newdf <- do.call(rbind, list(df1, df2, df3))
>
>How can this be done?
>
>Thanks,
>Naresh
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>PLEASE do read the posting guide
https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
--
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
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