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R Data Format Family (.rdata, .rda) Description. The RData format (usually with extension . rdata or . rda) is a format designed for use with R, a system for statistical computation and related graphics, for storing a complete R workspace or selected "objects" from a workspace in a form that can be loaded back by R.
RDS files can store a single R object, and RData files can store multiple R objects. There's no need to assign the output to an object. The R objects in your RData file will be loaded into your R session with their original names. RData files can contain multiple R objects, so loading one may read in multiple objects.
The easiest way to load the data into R is to double-click on the particular file yourfile. RData after you download it to your computer. This will open in RStudio only if you have associated the . RData files with RStudio.
RDA files can be opened with the free RStudio tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux systems in addition to R. Rdata files are those having a . rda extension.
Rda is just a short name for RData. You can just save(), load(), attach(), etc. just like you do with RData.
Rds stores a single R object. Yet, beyond that simple explanation, there are several differences from a "standard" storage. Probably this R-manual Link to readRDS() function clarifies such distinctions sufficiently.
So, answering your questions:
In addition to @KenM's answer, another important distinction is that, when loading in a saved object, you can assign the contents of an Rds file. Not so for Rda
> x <- 1:5
> save(x, file="x.Rda")
> saveRDS(x, file="x.Rds")
> rm(x)
## ASSIGN USING readRDS
> new_x1 <- readRDS("x.Rds")
> new_x1
[1] 1 2 3 4 5
## 'ASSIGN' USING load -- note the result
> new_x2 <- load("x.Rda")
loading in to <environment: R_GlobalEnv>
> new_x2
[1] "x"
# NOTE: `load()` simply returns the name of the objects loaded. Not the values.
> x
[1] 1 2 3 4 5
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