[R] variable driven summary of one column

[Anne Skoeries]

Hello,

how can I get a variable driven summary of one column of my data.frame?

Usually I would do
 > summary(data$columnname) to get a summary of column named  
"columnname" of my data.frame named "data".

In my case the columnname is not static but can be set dynamically.
So I save the chosen columname in something like
variable <- "columnname"
but how can I now get the summary of the specified column?

summary(data$get("variable")) doesn't work.
summary(paste("data$", variable, sep="") doesn't work either!
and if I try
summary(data[get("variable)] it gives me back a different result since  
the data isn't a factor anymore but a list.

Thanks for the help,
Anne