Column names like "First column" result in "First.column", why not "First_column"?

[tidyverse]

Column names like "First column" result in "First.column", why not "First_column"?

[grssnbchr]

Weirdly, in my case, this replacement does not work. I have, for example the column "Gemeinde-Nummer". This stays "Gemeinde-Nummer" after reading in, but I can't reference it like so, for example: mydata$Gemeinde-Nummer. This gives: Error: object 'Nummer' not found. Gemeinde Name stays Gemeinde Name. Using read.xlsx2(), it becomes Gemeinde.Name.

[petermeissner]

in regard to the referencing have a look at this ...

mydata <- list('g-n'=1)

# does not work
mydata$g-n

# ... because R is trying to do mydata$g minus n 
mydata$g <- 2
n <- 4
mydata$g - n 


# but this works 
mydata$`g-n`

[grssnbchr]

Ok thanks.. but how do I use it with dplyr?
For example, mydata %>% rename(GN = Gemeinde-Nummer) gives an error, too.

[petermeissner]

I cannot reproduce that. Data frames seem to refuse "-" as part of the name and transform it to "." instead :

mydata = data.frame(`g-n` = 1, normal = 2)
mydata
##   g.n normal
## 1   1      2

... could you give an minimal example ?

[hadley]

Just put backticks around weird names: mydata %>% rename(GN = Gemeinde-Nummer)