Select the last n columns of data frame in R

Question

Is there a way to systematically select the last columns of a data frame? I would like to be able to move the last columns to be the first columns, but maintain the order of

Answer 1

You can do a similar thing using the SOfun package, available on GitHub.

library(SOfun)

foo <- moveMe(colnames(mydata2), "A, B before num1")

mydata2[, foo]

#  A B num1 num2
#1 A B    1   36
#2 A B    2   37
#3 A B    3   38
#4 A B    4   39
#5 A B    5   40

You can move column names like this example from R Help.

x <- names(mtcars)

x
#[1] "mpg"  "cyl"  "disp" "hp"   "drat" "wt"   "qsec" "vs"   "am"   "gear" "carb"

moveMe(x, "hp first; cyl after drat; vs, am, gear before mpg; wt last")
#[1] "hp"   "vs"   "am"   "gear" "mpg"  "disp" "drat" "cyl"  "qsec" "carb" "wt"