change_col_name: Change one column name of a data.frame
In rccmisc: Miscellaneous R Functions for Swedish Regional Cancer Centers

Description Usage Arguments Value Examples

A data.frame can, by definition, have non unique column names. To change a column name to a new name that is already present in the data.frame might therefore lead to undesiered results. This function handles this problem by dropping the original column cousing the name clash.

1	change_col_name(x, old_name, new_name, warning = FALSE)

`x`	data.frame with a column name to change
`old_name`	name (as character string) of column in `x` that should be changed.
`new_name`	new name (as character string) to use instead of `old_name`
`warning`	should a warning be given if a name clash occours (`FALSE` by default)

The same data.frame but with one column named changed. (Note that the output might have one column less if dropped after name clash.)

ab <- ba <- data.frame(a = letters[1:10], b = 1:10)

# One "traditional" way to change a column name
names(ab)[names(ab) == "a"] <- "b"
names(ab)
ab$b # Returns the first column with name "b"

# Using change_col_names instead:
change_col_name(ba, "a", "b")