[R] subset based on column names and then subset based on the inverse (grep?, or...)

[stephen sefick]

I would like to be able to grab x and y columns out of a dataframe and
then grab all of the columns that are not equal to x or y.  I am sure
that I am missing something easy.


ftbr_UTM_downstream <- (structure(list(site =
c("Jennie_Creek_Main_Stem", "Wolf_Pit_Creek_Main_Stem",
"Little_Rockfish_Main_Stem_North", "Big_Muddy_Creek_Main_Stem",
"Flat_Creek_Main_Stem", "little_river_tributary", "Hector_Creek_Main_Stem",
"Juniper_Creek_Main_Stem", "Field_Branch_Main_Stem", "Gum_Branch_Main_Stem"
), base = c("ftbr", "ftbr", "ftbr", "ftbr", "ftbr", "ftbr", "ftbr",
"ftbr", "ftbr", "ftbr"), creek = c("jcms", "wpms", "lrf1", "bmcm",
"fcms", "lrtb", "hcms", "jpms", "fbms", "gbms"), date = c("06/20/2010",
"06/20/2010", "06/18/2010", "06/18/2010", "06/21/2010", "06/22/2010",
"06/22/2010", "06/21/2010", "06/19/2010", "06/19/2010"), elevation_m = c(101,
81, 59, 75, 73, 55, 55, 88, 77, 87), x = c(652159, 651646, 674147,
635466, 665726, 675295, 673098, 658917, 655613, 651748), y = c(3887647,
3886986, 3893724, 3876272, 3893886, 3895529, 3895076, 3882474,
3881587, 3884249), station = c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1),
    notes_ = c(NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA)), .Names = c("site",
"base", "creek", "date", "elevation_m", "x", "y", "station",
"notes_"), row.names = c("1", "3", "5", "7", "9", "11", "13",
"15", "17", "19"), class = "data.frame"))

#this doesn't work, but I would like it to.  I also tried grep to no avail

colnames(ftbr_UTM_downstream)=="x" | "y"


-- 
Stephen Sefick
____________________________________
| Auburn University                                   |
| Department of Biological Sciences           |
| 331 Funchess Hall                                  |
| Auburn, Alabama                                   |
| 36849                                                    |
|___________________________________|
| sas0025 at auburn.edu                             |
| http://www.auburn.edu/~sas0025             |
|___________________________________|

Let's not spend our time and resources thinking about things that are
so little or so large that all they really do for us is puff us up and
make us feel like gods.  We are mammals, and have not exhausted the
annoying little problems of being mammals.

                                -K. Mullis