Sorry if this is a basic question.


I'm using R 3.0.0 and data.table 1.8.8. The documentation for 'j' states that "A single column or single _expression_ returns that type, usually a vector."


I am able to obtain this behavior if I know the column name in advance:


> dt = data.table(a=c(1, 2, 3), b=c(4, 5, 6))

> dt

   a b

1: 1 4

2: 2 5

3: 3 6

> str(dt[,a])

 num [1:3] 1 2 3


However, if I don't, no such luck:

> colname="a"
> str(dt[,colname,with=F])
Classes ‘data.table’ and 'data.frame': 3 obs. of  1 variable:
 $ a: num  1 2 3
 - attr(*, ".internal.selfref")=<externalptr> 

If there a way to extract an entire column as a vector if I have the column name as a character scalar?

Thank you!

-- 
Alexandre Sieira
CISA, CISSP, ISO 27001 Lead Auditor

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
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