CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rexportdataframe
Marc in the box
Marc in the box

Reputation: 11995

How to add description lines to the header of a .txt output in R

I'm trying to create a .csv or .txt file from a data.frame object that also contains some lines describing more detail about the variables.

Here's my first attempt:

Head <- "
#variables:
#sal - Salinity [PSU]
#temp - Temperature [degrees Celsius]
"

n <- 10
df <- data.frame(sal=runif(n, 30, 37), temp=runif(n, 15, 17))
df

sink("data.txt")
Head
df
sink()

which results in this:

[1] "\n#variables [units]:\n#sal - Salinity [PSU]\n#temp - Temperature [degrees Celcius]\n"
        sal     temp
1  32.11494 15.35176
2  30.57537 16.80972
3  32.90651 15.95174
4  30.62192 15.73436
5  31.43069 15.45873
6  34.38173 15.69713
7  31.27954 15.01126
8  32.77093 16.22493
9  35.99510 15.10123
10 35.52409 15.49084

but, I would really like it to look like this:

#variables [units]:
#sal - Salinity [PSU]
#temp - Temperature [degrees Celcius]

        sal     temp
1  32.11494 15.35176
2  30.57537 16.80972
3  32.90651 15.95174
4  30.62192 15.73436
5  31.43069 15.45873
6  34.38173 15.69713
7  31.27954 15.01126
8  32.77093 16.22493
9  35.99510 15.10123
10 35.52409 15.49084

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1245

Answers (1)

Brandon Bertelsen
Brandon Bertelsen

Reputation: 44638

Use cat instead of letting R call the object's print method. 

sink("data.txt")
cat(Head)
df
sink()

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions