[R] [FORGED] same column name in a data frame

[Rolf Turner]

On 14/03/17 14:56, Jinsong Zhao wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I happened to find the following code can generate a data frame with
> same column name.
>
>> x <- data.frame(a=c(1,2,3))
>> y <- data.frame(a=c(2,3,4))
>> z <- cbind(x,y)
>
> However, in this case, one can not use the $ to extract the second
> column, right?
>
> Is it possible to prevent the cbind() produce a data frame with same
> column name?

No.

Why not either:

(a) Just make sure the names in "x" and "y" differ?

Or:

(b) Change the names of "z", e.g. names(z) <- c("clyde","irving")?

Or maybe names(z) <- make.unique(names(z)).

You could probably write a wrapper function for cbind() to automate (b) 
if you really want to.

cheers,

Rolf Turner

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