How to save() with a particular variable name

Question

I am repeatedly applying a function to read and process a bunch of csv files. Each time it runs, the function creates a data frame (this.csv.data) and uses save() to write it to a .RData file with a unique name. Problem is, later when I read these .RData files using load(), the loaded variable names are not unique, because each one loads with the name this.csv.data....

I'd like to save them with unique tags so that they come out properly named when I load() them. I've created the following code to illustrate .

this.csv.data = list(data=c(1:9), unique_tag = "some_unique_tag") assign(this.csv.data$unique_tag,this.csv.data$data) # I want to save the data,  # with variable name of <unique_tag>,  # at a file named <unique_tag>.dat saved_file_name <- paste(this.csv.data$unique_tag,"RData",sep=".") save(get(this.csv.data$unique_tag), saved_file_name) 

but the last line returns:

"Error in save(get(this_unique_tag), file = data_tag) :    object ‘get(this_unique_tag)’ not found" 

even though the following returns the data just fine:

get(this.csv.data$unique_tag) 

Answer 1

Just name the arguments you use. With your code the following works fine:

save(list = this.csv.data$unique_tag, file=saved_file_name)