How to use save() function in R when variable names are stored in a vector? -

i have vector varnames has "name" of variables "character". want save particular variables rdata using save(). how should go that?

i trying following:

> varset   [1] "blah1"  [2] "blah2" > str(vatset)   chr [1:44] "blah1" "blah2" ... > foo <- lapply(varset, function(x) as.name(x))

as expected foo list of symbols. thinking of doing like

eval(unlist(foo), file="filename")

i guess unlist(foo) not working. how should solve issue? can clear concept why unlist(foo) not unlisting list of symbols?

edit: adding artificial example

> x <- c(1,2,3) > y <- data.frame(m=c(1,2), n=c(1,2,3))

i can save x , y.

> save(x, y, file="filename.rda")

but suppose have

> varset <- c("x", "y")

in example varset big set. need use varset save corresponding variables names stored.

you can save data object as:

save(varset, file="varset.rdata")

but inquiry sounds bit confused. want save it, or save in particular way, data.frame?

assuming list of lists called varset:

you can use plyr solution:

library (plyr)   df <- ldply(varset, data.frame)

or more manually strategy. assuming list has 100 elements:

df <- data.frame(matrix(unlist(varset), nrow=100, byrow=t))

the above convert character columns factors, avoid can add parameter data.frame() call:

df <- data.frame(matrix(unlist(varset), nrow=100, byrow=t),stringsasfactors=false)

Overvie