R officer constructing set_header_labels lists of column names and replacements

Question

The officer set_header_labels function assigns a name to print replacing the column name, like this.

ft <- set_header_labels(ft,

values = list( Sepal.Length = "Sepal length", Sepal.Width = "Sepal width", Petal.Length = "Petal length", Petal.Width = "Petal width" )

I'd like to construct the pair of column name and replace dynamically. For example I have

cols_names <- c("colname1", "colnametitle1")
cols_titles <- c("colname2", "colnametitle2")

I want these to be output as

values = list( colname1 = "colnametitle1", colname2 = "colnametitle1" )

This gets close for the column names and titles pairs

paste0(cols_names, ' = "', cols_titles, '", "' )

But there must be some easier way manipulating lists that I haven't figured out.

Answer 1

Unfortunately paste0 will not work as the values argument of set_header_labels requires a named list. But you could use setNames to do so.

Using a minimal reproducible example based on iris:

library(flextable)

dat <- head(iris[1:2])
names(dat) <- c("colname1", "colname2")

ft <- flextable(dat)

cols_names <- c("colname1", "colname2")
cols_titles <- c("columntitle1", "columntitle2")

values <- setNames(cols_titles, cols_names)

ft <- set_header_labels(ft,
  values = values
)

ft