Convert Variable Names to Upper & Lower Case in R (2 Examples)

This article shows how to convert variable names to upper and lower case in the R programming language.

Creation of Example Data

data(iris)                             # Load example data frame
head(iris)
#   sepal.length sepal.width petal.length petal.width species
# 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
# 4          4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
# 5          5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 6          5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa

Example 1: Converting Letters in Variable Names to Upper Case

names(iris) <- toupper(names(iris))    # Upper case
head(iris)                             # Display updated data
#   SEPAL.LENGTH SEPAL.WIDTH PETAL.LENGTH PETAL.WIDTH SPECIES
# 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
# 4          4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
# 5          5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 6          5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa

Example 2: Converting Letters in Variable Names to Lower Case

names(iris) <- tolower(names(iris))    # Lower case
head(iris)                             # Display updated data
#   sepal.length sepal.width petal.length petal.width species
# 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
# 4          4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
# 5          5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 6          5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa

Further Resources & Related Tutorials

Have a look at the following R tutorials. They illustrate topics such as matrices, extracting data, and merging.

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