R - abbreviate strings automatically

• abbreviate strings automatically
  
• option minlength sets the number of characters
  
• abbreviate in a way that they remain unique
  

data(armd.wide,package="nlmeU")
names(armd.wide)

 [1] "subject"  "lesion"   "line0"    "visual0"  "visual4"  "visual12"
 [7] "visual24" "visual52" "treat.f"  "miss.pat"

abbreviate(names(armd.wide))

 subject   lesion    line0  visual0  visual4 visual12 visual24 visual52 
  "sbjc"   "lesn"   "lin0"   "vsl0"   "vsl4"   "vs12"   "vs24"   "vs52" 
 treat.f miss.pat 
  "trt."   "mss."