dplyr - using column names as function arguments

This can work using the latest dplyr syntax (as can be seen on github):

library(dplyr)
library(rlang)
sumByColumn <- function(df, colName) {
  df %>%
    group_by(a) %>%
    summarize(tot = sum(!! sym(colName)))
}

sumByColumn(data, "b")
## A tibble: 2 x 2
#      a   tot
#  <int> <int>
#1     1    24
#2     2    27

And an alternative way of specifying b as a variable:

library(dplyr)
sumByColumn <- function(df, colName) {
  myenc <- enquo(colName)
  df %>%
    group_by(a) %>%
    summarize(tot = sum(!!myenc))
}

sumByColumn(data, b)
## A tibble: 2 x 2
#      a   tot
#  <int> <int>
#1     1    24
#2     2    27

dplyr now also provides helper functions (summarise_at, which accepts arguments vars, funs) for this

sumByColumn <- function(df, colName) {
  df %>%
    group_by(a) %>%
    summarize_at(vars(colName), funs(tot = sum))
}

provides the same answer

# A tibble: 2 x 2
      # a   tot
  # <int> <int>
# 1     1    24
# 2     2    27