title: R dplyr:: rename and select using string variable
body: <p>I am trying to select a subset of variables in my dataframe, and rename the variables in the new dataframe. I have a large number of variables that I would need to rename. I am using </p>
  
  <pre><code>dplyr::select
  dplyr::select_
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Since I have number of variables to rename, I am thinking if I should use a string variable to rename, but not sure if it could be possible? Using a string helps me to manage the newname oldname mapping. Here is an example</p>
  
  <pre><code>dplyr::select
  library(dplyr)
  library(nycflights13) 
  set.seed(123)
  data &lt;- sample_n(flights, 3)
  
  select(data,yr=year,mon=month,deptime=dep_time)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The question how could I pass the arguments for this in a string, that is the newvariable=oldvariable arguments and then use</p>
  
  <pre><code>dplyr::select_
  
  col_vector &lt;- c("year", "month", "dep_time")
  select_(data, .dots = col_vector)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The string I have in mind are:</p>
  
  <pre><code>rename_vector &lt;- c("yr=year","mon=month","deptime=dep_time")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any suggestions would be very helpful.</p>