Rename a sequence of variable names in data frame

Question

I have 5 columns in a data frame and I would like to rename the variable names as Var1, Var2, Var3, Var4, Var5.

My current approach is not very convenient:

names(mydata)[1:10] <- c("Var1", "Var2", "Var3", "Var4", "Var5")

Is there a better way so that when I have 100 variables, I don't have to type all 100 names?

Answer 1

The sprintf function would be ideal for this:

names(mydata)[1:100] <- sprintf("Var%d", 1:100)

or

names(mydata)[1:100] <- sprintf("Var%03d", 1:100)

Depending on if you want names like "Var1","Var2",... or "Var001","Var002", ...

Answer 2

names(mydata)[1:100] <- paste("Var", 1:100, sep="")