Add Suffix or Prefix

We wish to add a prefix or a suffix to the names of columns of a data frame.

In this section, we add a prefix or a suffix to the names of all columns. To only modify the names of specific columns, see Column Selection for Implicit Renaming.

Prefix

We wish to add a prefix (a substring that comes before the current column name) to the names of columns of a data frame.

In this example, we wish to add the prefix ‘B_’ to the names of all columns.

df_2 = df %>% 
    rename_with(~ str_c('B', .x, sep = "_"))

Here is how this works:

  • We use rename_with() to rename columns by applying a function to existing column names and using the output as the new column names. See Implicit Renaming.
  • We are passing to rename_with() an anonymous function (a one-sided formula) that takes the current column names and uses the function str_c() to concatenate to them the prefix ‘B’ separated by an underscore (as specified by the sep argument of str_c()). See String Combining.

Suffix

We wish to add a suffix (a substring that comes after the current column name) to the names of columns of a data frame.

In this example, we wish to add the suffix ‘_B’ to the names of all columns.

df_2 = df %>% 
    rename_with(~ str_c(.x, 'B', sep = "_"))

Here is how this works:

  • We use rename_with() to rename columns by applying a function to existing column names and using the output as the new column names. See Implicit Renaming.
  • We are passing to rename_with() an anonymous function (a one-sided formula) that takes the current column names and uses the function str_c() to concatenate to them the suffix ‘B’ separated by an underscore (as specified by the sep argument of str_c()). See String Combining.
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