export_list function

Export list of data frames to files

Use export() to export a list of data frames to a vector of file names or a filename pattern.

export_list(x, file, archive = "", ...)

Arguments

• x: A list of data frames to be written to files.
• file: A character vector string containing a single file name with a \%s wildcard placeholder, or a vector of file paths for multiple files to be imported. If x elements are named, these will be used in place of \%s, otherwise numbers will be used; all elements must be named for names to be used.
• archive: character. Either empty string (default) to save files in current directory, a path to a (new) directory, or a .zip/.tar file to compress all files into an archive.
• ...: Additional arguments passed to export().

Returns

The name(s) of the output file(s) as a character vector (invisibly).

Details

export() can export a list of data frames to a single multi-dataset file (e.g., an Rdata or Excel .xlsx file). Use export_list to export such a list to multiple files.

Examples

## For demo, a temp. file path is created with the file extension .xlsx
xlsx_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".xlsx")
export(
    list(
        mtcars1 = mtcars[1:10, ],
        mtcars2 = mtcars[11:20, ],
        mtcars3 = mtcars[21:32, ]
    ),
    xlsx_file
)

# import a single file from multi-object workbook
import(xlsx_file, sheet = "mtcars1")
# import all worksheets, the return value is a list
import_list(xlsx_file)
library('datasets')
export(list(mtcars1 = mtcars[1:10,],
            mtcars2 = mtcars[11:20,],
            mtcars3 = mtcars[21:32,]),
    xlsx_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".xlsx")
)

# import all worksheets
list_of_dfs <- import_list(xlsx_file)

# re-export as separate named files

## export_list(list_of_dfs, file = c("file1.csv", "file2.csv", "file3.csv"))

# re-export as separate files using a name pattern; using the names in the list
## This will be written as "mtcars1.csv", "mtcars2.csv", "mtcars3.csv"

## export_list(list_of_dfs, file = "%s.csv")

See Also

import(), import_list(), export()