rename column in dataframe using variable name R -

i have number of data frames. each same format. this:

                     b          c 1  -0.02299388  0.71404158  0.8492423 2  -1.43027866 -1.96420767 -1.2886368 3  -1.01827712 -0.94141194 -2.0234436 

i change name of third column--c--so includes part if name of variable name associated data frame.

for variable df_elephant data frame should this:

               b          c.elephant 1  -0.02299388  0.71404158  0.8492423 2  -1.43027866 -1.96420767 -1.2886368 3  -1.01827712 -0.94141194 -2.0234436 

i have function change column name:

rename_columns <- function(x) {    colnames(x)[colnames(x)=='c'] <-     paste( 'c',            strsplit (deparse (substitute(x)), '_')[[1]][2], sep='.' )    return(x) } 

this works data frames. however, provide list of data frames not have call function multiple times hand. if use lapply so:

lapply( list (df_elephant, df_horse), rename_columns ) 

the function renames data frames na rather portion of variable name.

[[1]]                     b       c.na 1  -0.02299388  0.71404158  0.8492423 2  -1.43027866 -1.96420767 -1.2886368 3  -1.01827712 -0.94141194 -2.02344361  [[2]]                     b       c.na 1   0.45387054  0.02279488  1.6746280 2  -1.47271378  0.68660595 -0.2505752 3   1.26475917 -1.51739927 -1.3050531 

is there way kind provide list of data frames function , produce desired result?

you trying process data frame column names instead of actual lists' name. , why it's not working.

# generating random data n = 3 item1 = data.frame(a = runif(n), b = runif(n), c = runif(n)) item2 = data.frame(a = runif(n), b = runif(n), c = runif(n)) mylist = list(df_elephant = item1,  df_horse = item2)   # 1- why code doesnt work: --------------- names(mylist) # return actual names want use : [1] "df_elephant" "df_horse"    lapply(mylist, names) # return dataframes' column names. , thats why getting "na"   # 2- how make work: --------------- lapply(seq_along(mylist), # return array of indicies           function(i){          dfname = names(mylist)[i] # list name          dfname.animal = unlist(strsplit(dfname, "_"))[2] # split on underscore , take second element           df = mylist[[i]] # copy actual data frame           colnames(df)[colnames(df) == "c"] = paste("c", dfname.animal, sep = ".") # change column names           return(df) # return new df         })   # [[1]] #          b c.elephant # 1 0.8289368 0.06589051  0.2929881 # 2 0.2362753 0.55689663  0.4854670 # 3 0.7264990 0.68069346  0.2940342 #  # [[2]] #         b   c.horse # 1 0.08032856 0.4137106 0.6378605 # 2 0.35671556 0.8112511 0.4321704 # 3 0.07306260 0.6850093 0.2510791