Your function doesn't return the new data frame but rather the new names. Note, e.g.
x <- 1:2 names(x) <- letters[1:2] .Last.value # Not x! Try this: .xx<- lapply(.xx, function(x) {colnames(x)<-c('State', 'Year'); x}) or more explicitly .xx<- lapply(.xx, function(x) {colnames(x)<-c('State', 'Year'); return(x)}) Michael On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Simon Kiss <sjk...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi: I'm sure this is a very easy problem. I've consulted Data Manipulation > With R and the R Book and can't find an answer. > > Sample list of data frames looks as follows: > > .xx<-list(df<-data.frame(Var1=rep('Alabama', 400), Var2=rep(c(2004, 2005, > 2006, 2007), 400)), df2<-data.frame(Var1=rep('Tennessee', 400), > Var2=rep(c(2004,2005,2006,2007), 400)), df3<-data.frame(Var1=rep('Alaska', > 400), Var2=rep(c(2004,2005,2006,2007), 400)) ) > > I would like to accomplish the following two tasks. > First, I'd like to go through and change the names of each of the data frames > within the list > to be 'State' and 'Year' > > Second, I'd like to go through and add one year to each of the 'Var2' > variables. > > Third, I'd like to then delete those cases in the data frames that have > values of Var2 (or Year) values of 2008. > > I could do this manually, but my data are actually bigger than this, plus I'd > really like to learn. I've been trying to use lapply, but I can't get my head > around how it works: > .xx<- lapply(.xx, function(x) colnames(x)<-c('State', 'Year') > just changes the actual list of data frames to a list of the character string > ('State' and 'Year') How do I actually change the underlying variable names? > > I'm grateful for your suggestions! > Simon Kiss > > ********************************* > Simon J. Kiss, PhD > Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University > 73 George Street > Brantford, Ontario, Canada > N3T 2C9 > Cell: +1 905 746 7606 > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.