rownames: Convert row names back and forth between columns.
In rstats-db/SQL: Safely Generate Common SQL Strings

These functions provide a reasonably automatic way of preserving the row names of data frame during back-and-forth translation to a SQL table. By default, row names will be converted to an explicit column called "row_names", and any query returning a column called "row_names" will have those automatically set as row names.

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rownamesToColumn(df, row.names = NA)

columnToRownames(df, row.names = NA)

df

A data frame

row.names

Either TRUE, FALSE, NA or a string.

If TRUE, always translate row names to a column called "row_names". If FALSE, never translate row names. If NA, translate rownames only if they're a character vector.

A string is equivalent to TRUE, but allows you to override the default name.

For backward compatibility, NULL is equivalent to FALSE.

# If have row names
rownamesToColumn(head(mtcars))
rownamesToColumn(head(mtcars), FALSE)
rownamesToColumn(head(mtcars), "ROWNAMES")

# If don't have
rownamesToColumn(head(iris))
rownamesToColumn(head(iris), TRUE)
rownamesToColumn(head(iris), "ROWNAMES")