Write: Write the Contents of a Data Frame to an External File
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Write

R Documentation

Write the Contents of a Data Frame to an External File

Description

Abbreviation: wrt, wrt_r, wrt_x

Writes the contents of the specified data frame, such as with the default d, to the current working directory as either the default csv data file and also tab limited and space unlimited text files, an Excel data table, an OpenDocument Spreadsheet file, an arrow feather or parquet file, or a native R data file of the specified data frame. If the write is for a .csv, or .tsv, or .prn text file, then any variable labels are written to a second csv file with "_lbl" appended to the file name. Any variable labels and variable units are automatically included in a native R data file.

Usage

Write(data=d, to=NULL, 

         format=c("csv", "txt", "tsv", "prn",
                  "Excel", "ODS", "R", "SPSS", "feather", "parquet"),

         row_names=NULL, quote="if_needed", missing=NULL, dec=".", sep=NULL,  

         ExcelTable=FALSE, ExcelColWidth=TRUE,

         quiet=getOption("quiet"), ...)

wrt(...)

wrt_r(..., format="R")
wrt_x(..., format="Excel")

Arguments

`data`	Data frame of which the contents are to be written to an external data file, that is, no quotes.
`to`	Name of the output file as a character string, that is, with quotes. If not included in the name, the file type is automatically added to the name according to the specified `format`. Or, specify the file name with the file extension from which the `format` is derived. If omitted, then the file name is the data frame name.
`format`	Format of file to be written with `.csv` as the default.
`row_names`	Format of file to be written with `.csv` as the default. Set to `TRUE` by default unless writing to Excel or csv file and row names are just the integers from 1 to the number of rows.

`quote`	Specifies how character data values are to be quoted. The default is `"if_needed"`, which puts quotes around character data values that include spaces, commas, tabs, and other white spaces. The value of `TRUE` quotes character data values, needed or not.
`missing`	The data value indicates missing for text files. Defaults to a blank space except for `prn` files, which is then `NA`.
`dec`	The character that represents the decimal point for text files.
`sep`	The character that separates adjacent data values for text files. Defaults to `","`.

`ExcelTable`	If `TRUE`, write the Excel file as an Excel table.
`ExcelColWidth`	`TRUE` by default but calculation of column widths for large files takes more time, so option to turn off.

`quiet`	If set to `TRUE`, no text output. Can change system default with `style` function.
`...`	Other parameter values for `csv` files consistent with the usual `write.table`, including `na=""` to write missing data to a `csv` file as blanks instead of `NA`.

Details

The default file name is the name of the data frame to be written, otherwise use to to specify the name. To specify the file type of the output data file, do so with any available file type provided as part of the file name for the output file, or by the value of the format parameter. Can specify the file name without the file type, which, if no format is provided, Write adds automatically the .csv file extension. The name of the file that is written, as well as the name of the working directory into which the file was written, are displayed at the console.

The following table lists various file formats along with the associated R packages and functions for writing them. The default text file format, .txt, defaults to dec="." and sep=",", that is, North American csv format, but can be customize as needed.

Extension	Format	Package	Function
.txt	Text, customize dec and sep	R utils	`write.table()`
.csv	Text, comma-separated values	R utils	`write.table()`
.tsv	Text, tab-separated values	R utils	`write.table()`
.prn	Text, space-separated values	R utils	`write.table()`
.xlsx	Excel	openxlsx	`writeData()` or `writeDataTable()`
.ods	ODS	readODS	`write_ods()`
.feather	Feather	arrow	`write_feather()`
.parquet	Parquet	arrow	`write_parquet()`
.rda	R data	R base	`save()`
.sav	SPSS	haven	`write_sav()`

Write is designed to work in conjunction with the function Read from this package, which reads a csv or other text file, fixed width format, or native SPSS or R data files into the data frame d. Write relies upon the R functions write.csv and save.

When writing the data frame in native R format, the specified name of the resulting .rda file is distinct from the name of the data frame as stored within R.

Author(s)

David W. Gerbing (Portland State University; gerbing@pdx.edu)

Examples

# create data frame called d
#n <- 12
#X <- sample(c("Group1","Group2"), size=n, replace=TRUE)
#Y <- rnorm(n=n, mean=50, sd=10)
#d <- data.frame(X,Y)

# write the current contents of default data frame d to GoodData.csv
# Write(d, "GoodData")
# short name
# write the default data frame d to the R data file d.rda
#  wrt_r(d)

# write the data as an Excel data table in an Excel file
# Write(d, "GoodData", format="Excel")
# with abbreviation
# wrt_x(d, "GoodData")

# access the R data frame warpbreaks
#   then, write the file warpbreaks.rda
# data(warpbreaks)
# wrt_r(warpbreaks)

lessR documentation built on April 4, 2025, 12:31 a.m.