Export a list into a CSV or TXT file in R

Question

I understand that we cannot export a table if one of its elements is a list. I got a list in R and I want to export it into a CSV or TXT file. Here is the error message that I get when I execute this write.table command :

write.table(mylist,"test.txt",sep=";")  Error in .External2(C_writetable, x, file, nrow(x), p, rnames, sep, eol,  :  unimplemented type 'list' in 'EncodeElement' 

Here is the first element of my list :

$f10010_1 $f10010_1$mots  [1] X16               ESPRESSO          TDISC             TASSIMO            [5] CARTE             NOIRE             A                 LAVAZZA            [9] MALONGO           MIO               MODO              123               [13] CAPSULES          DOSES             78G               LONG              [17] SPRESSO           CAFE              120G              CLASSIC           [21] 104G              128G              AROMATIQUE        INTENSE           [25] 112G              156G              520G              5X16              [29] PROMO             TRIPACK           X24               126G              [33] 16                4X16              APPASSIONATAMENTE APPASSIONATEMENTE [37] BRESIL            CAPSUL            COLOMBIE          CORSE             [41] CREMOSAMENTE      DELICATI          DELIZIOSAMENTE    DIVINAMENTE       [45] DOLCEMENTE        EQI               GRAND             GRANDE            [49] GT                GUATEMALA         HAITI             INTENSAMENTE      [53] ITALIAN           MAGICAMENTE       MERE              MOKA78G           [57] PETITS            PRODUCT           PURSMATIN         RESERVE           [61] RISTRETO          SOAVEMENTE        STYLE             X36               64 Levels: 104G 112G 120G 123 126G 128G 156G 16 4X16 520G 5X16 78G ... X36  $f10010_1$nblabel  [1] 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 [27] 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 [53] 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 Levels: 32  $f10010_1$Freq  [1] 18 16 16 15 14 14  9  9  9  9  9  8  8  8  7  7  7  6  5  5  3  3  3  3  2  2 [27]  2  2  2  2  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1 [53]  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  $f10010_1$pct  [1] 0.56250 0.50000 0.50000 0.46875 0.43750 0.43750 0.28125 0.28125 0.28125 [10] 0.28125 0.28125 0.25000 0.25000 0.25000 0.21875 0.21875 0.21875 0.18750 [19] 0.15625 0.15625 0.09375 0.09375 0.09375 0.09375 0.06250 0.06250 0.06250 [28] 0.06250 0.06250 0.06250 0.06250 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 [37] 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 [46] 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 [55] 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 0.03125 [64] 0.03125 

Answer 1

I think the most straightforward way to do this is using capture.output, thus;

capture.output(summary(mylist), file = "My New File.txt") 

Easy!

Answer 2

So essentially you have a list of lists, with mylist being the name of the main list and the first element being $f10010_1 which is printed out (and which contains 4 more lists).

I think the easiest way to do this is to use lapply with the addition of dataframe (assuming that each list inside each element of the main list (like the lists in $f10010_1) has the same length):

lapply(mylist, function(x) write.table( data.frame(x), 'test.csv'  , append= T, sep=',' )) 

The above will convert $f10010_1 into a dataframe then do the same with every other element and append one below the other in 'test.csv'

You can also type ?write.table on your console to check what other arguments you need to pass when you write the table to a csv file e.g. whether you need row names or column names etc.