How to evaluate a constructed string with non-standard evaluation using dplyr?

Question

I have read several guides on programming with dplyr now and I am still confused about how to solve the problem of evaluating constructed/concatenated strin

Answer 1

Use sym and := like this:

library(dplyr)
library(rlang)

t <- tibble( x_01 = c(1, 2, 3), x_02 = c(4, 5, 6))
i <- 1

new <- sym(sprintf("d_%02d", i))
var <- sym(sprintf("x_%02d", i))
t %>% mutate(!!new := (!!var) * 2)

giving:

# A tibble: 3 x 3
   x_01  x_02  d_01
    
1     1     4     2
2     2     5     4
3     3     6     6

Also note that this is trivial in base R:

tdf <- data.frame( x_01 = c(1, 2, 3), x_02 = c(4, 5, 6))
i <- 1

new <- sprintf("d_%02d", i)
var <- sprintf("x_%02d", i)
tdf[[new]] <- 2 * tdf[[var]]