After a lot of trial and error, I found the pattern UQ(rlang::sym("some string here"))) really useful for working with strings and dplyr verbs. It seems to work in a lot of surprising situations.
Here's an example with mutate. We want to create a function that adds together two columns, where you pass the function both column names as strings. We can use this pattern, together with the assignment operator :=, to do this.
## Take column `name1`, add it to column `name2`, and call the result `new_name`
mutate_values <- function(new_name, name1, name2){
mtcars %>%
mutate(UQ(rlang::sym(new_name)) := UQ(rlang::sym(name1)) + UQ(rlang::sym(name2)))
}
mutate_values('test', 'mpg', 'cyl')
The pattern works with other dplyr functions as well. Here's filter:
## filter a column by a value
filter_values <- function(name, value){
mtcars %>%
filter(UQ(rlang::sym(name)) != value)
}
filter_values('gear', 4)
Or arrange:
## transform a variable and then sort by it
arrange_values <- function(name, transform){
mtcars %>%
arrange(UQ(rlang::sym(name)) %>% UQ(rlang::sym(transform)))
}
arrange_values('mpg', 'sin')
For select, you don't need to use the pattern. Instead you can use !!:
## select a column
select_name <- function(name){
mtcars %>%
select(!!name)
}
select_name('mpg')