[R] How to parse and eval a collection of items

[Carl Witthoft]

Let's say I have, for some reason, a bunch of scalars (i.e. 
single-valued variables) and I want to merge them all into a single 
vector of values.  Can someone recommend a better function, or simpler 
way, to do so than the following?

Suppose my scalars' names are foo1, foo2, foo3, foo1high, foo2high, 
foo3lo2, etc.  Then I can do:



 >ls(pat='foo')->thels


 >mapply(function(x) eval(as.name(thels[x])),seq(1:length(thels)))->vecfoo


I was hoping for some way to avoid creating a function and an *apply 
call.  Conceptually, eval(as.name(c(thels)))  which of course doesn't work.

thanks
Carl