[gov2001-l] dynamic variable names in R?

Suppose I have several dataframes: g1, g2, g3.... Each as the same variable names: X, Y.... I want to write a function that can deal with variables across the dataframes. The easiest way that I can think of to do it would be to write a function that could walk through each dataframe and do stuff to the variables, something like: mush.data <- function(varname, numgroups) { for(i in 1:numgroups) { SomeFunction(paste("g", i, "$",varname) } BUT - paste just gives me a string. How do I get R to realize that it's actually pointing to a vector? I feel that R should let me do this, right? Any help would be greatly appreciated. /\llan