The R Project SVN R

% File src/library/base/man/write.Rd

% Part of the R package, https://www.R-project.org

% Copyright 1995-2023 R Core Team

% Distributed under GPL 2 or later

\name{write}

\title{Write Data to a File}

\alias{write}

\usage{

write(x, file = "data",

      ncolumns = if(is.character(x)) 1 else 5,

      append = FALSE, sep = " ")

}

\description{

  Write data \code{x} to a file or other \code{\link{connection}}.

  \cr

  As it simply calls \code{\link{cat}()}, less formatting happens than

  with \I{\code{\link{print}()}ing}.

  If \code{x} is a matrix you need to transpose it (and typically set

  \code{ncolumns}) to get the columns in \code{file} the same as those in

  the internal representation.

  Whereas atomic vectors (\code{\link{numeric}}, \code{\link{character}},

  etc, including matrices) are written plainly, i.e., without any names,

  less simple vector-like objects such as \code{"\link{factor}"},

  \code{"\link{Date}"}, or \code{"\link{POSIXt}"} may be

  \code{\link{format}}ted to character before writing.

}

\arguments{

  \item{x}{the data to be written out. }

  \item{file}{a \code{\link{connection}}, or a character string naming

    the file to write to.  If \code{""}, print to the standard output

    connection, i.e., \code{""} is equivalent to \code{\link{stdout}()}

    here.

    When \code{\link{.Platform}$OS.type != "windows"}, and it

    is \code{"|cmd"}, the output is piped to the command given

    by \file{cmd}.

  }

  \item{ncolumns}{the number of columns to write the data in.}

  \item{append}{if \code{TRUE} the data \code{x} are appended to the

    connection.}

  \item{sep}{a string used to separate columns.  Using \code{sep = "\t"}

    gives tab delimited output; default is \code{" "}.}

}

\references{

  \bibshow{R:Becker+Chambers+Wilks:1988}

}

\seealso{

  \code{write} is a wrapper for \code{\link{cat}}, which gives further

  details on the format used.

  \code{\link{write.table}} for matrix and data frame objects,

  \code{\link{writeLines}} for lines of text,

  and \code{\link{scan}} for reading data.

  \code{\link{saveRDS}} and \code{\link{save}} are often preferable (for

  writing any \R objects).

}

\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

}

\keyword{file}

\keyword{connection}