R: Write Data to a File

write {base}

R Documentation

Write Data to a File

Description

Write data x to a file or other connection.
As it simply calls cat(), less formatting happens than with print()ing. If x is a matrix you need to transpose it (and typically set ncolumns) to get the columns in file the same as those in the internal representation.

Whereas atomic vectors (numeric, character, etc, including matrices) are written plainly, i.e., without any names, less simple vector-like objects such as "factor", "Date", or "POSIXt" may be formatted to character before writing.

Usage

write(x, file = "data",
      ncolumns = if(is.character(x)) 1 else 5,
      append = FALSE, sep = " ")

Arguments

x

the data to be written out.

file

a connection, or a character string naming the file to write to. If "", print to the standard output connection, i.e., "" is equivalent to stdout() here.

When .Platform$OS.type != "windows", and it is "|cmd", the output is piped to the command given by ‘cmd’.

ncolumns

the number of columns to write the data in.

append

if TRUE the data x are appended to the connection.

sep

a string used to separate columns. Using sep = "\t" gives tab delimited output; default is " ".

References

⁠Becker RA, Chambers JM, Wilks AR (1988). The New S Language. Chapman and Hall/CRC, London.

Examples

# Demonstrate default ncolumns, writing to the console
write(month.abb,  "")  # 1 element  per line for "character"
write(stack.loss, "")  # 5 elements per line for "numeric"

# Build a file with sequential calls
fil <- tempfile("data")
write("# Model settings", fil)
write(month.abb, fil, ncolumns = 6, append = TRUE)
write("\n# Initial parameter values", fil, append = TRUE)
write(sqrt(stack.loss), fil, append = TRUE)
if(interactive()) file.show(fil)
unlink(fil) # tidy up