Convert named list to vector with values only

Question

I have a list of named values:

myList <- list('A' = 1, 'B' = 2, 'C' = 3)

I want a vector with the value 1:3

I can't figure out how to extract the values without defining a function. Is there a simpler way that I'm unaware of?

library(plyr)
myvector <- laply(myList, function(x) x)

Is there something akin to myList$Values to strip the names and return it as a vector?

Answer 1

Use unlist with use.names = FALSE argument.

unlist(myList, use.names=FALSE) 

Answer 2

purrr::flatten_*() is also a good option. the flatten_* functions add thin sanity checks and ensure type safety.

myList <- list('A'=1, 'B'=2, 'C'=3)  purrr::flatten_dbl(myList) ## [1] 1 2 3 

Answer 3

This can be done by using unlist before as.vector. The result is the same as using the parameter use.names=FALSE.

as.vector(unlist(myList))