Dynamic “string” in R

Question

Simple question, but cannot find the answer.

Instead of:

Df <- sqlQuery(ch, "SELECT * FROM tblTest WHERE Id=25")

I want a more dynamic piece of code. Something like:

Id <- 25
Df <- sqlQuery(ch, c("SELECT * FROM tblTest WHERE Id=", Id))

But this is not correct.

Answer 1

We can use paste:

Df <- sqlQuery(ch, paste("SELECT * FROM tblTest WHERE Id =", Id))

c concatenates into a vector, paste is for string concatenation.

Or we can use sprintf:

sprintf("SELECT * FROM tblTest WHERE Id = %s", Id)

Answer 2

If you have multiple or reused arguments and a query that contains % you can use something like the following:

sprintf("SELECT * FROM test WHERE id = %1$s AND name = %2$s and type like ‘%%tall%%’”, id, name)