Export data to a file (TXT, CSV, Excel, SPSS, Stata, ...) or clipboard.

Export data to a file, with format automatically judged from file extension. This function is inspired by rio::export() and has several modifications. Its purpose is to avoid using lots of write_xxx() functions in your code and to provide one tidy function for data export.

It supports many file formats and uses corresponding R functions:

• Plain text (.txt, .csv, .csv2, .tsv, .psv), using data.table::fwrite(); if the encoding argument is specified, using utils::write.table() instead

• Excel (.xls, .xlsx), using openxlsx::write.xlsx()

• SPSS (.sav), using haven::write_sav()

• Stata (.dta), using haven::write_dta()

• R objects (.rda, .rdata, .RData), using base::save()

• R serialized objects (.rds), using base::saveRDS()

• Clipboard (on Windows and Mac OS), using clipr::write_clip()

• Other formats, using rio::export()

Usage

export(
  x,
  file,
  encoding = NULL,
  header = "auto",
  sheet = NULL,
  overwrite = TRUE,
  verbose = FALSE
)

Arguments

x

Any R object, usually a data frame (data.frame, data.table, tbl_df). Multiple R objects should be included in a named list (see examples).

If you want to save R objects other than a data frame (e.g., model results), you'd better specify file with extensions .rda, .rdata, or .RData.

file

File name (with extension). If unspecified, then data will be exported to clipboard.

encoding

File encoding. Defaults to NULL. Options: "UTF-8", "GBK", "CP936", etc.

If you find messy code for Chinese text in the exported data (often in CSV when opened with Excel), it is usually useful to set encoding="GBK" or encoding="CP936".

header

Does the first row contain column names (TRUE or FALSE)? Defaults to "auto".

sheet

[Only for Excel] Excel sheet name(s). Defaults to "Sheet1", "Sheet2", ... You may specify multiple sheet names in a character vector c() with the same length as x (see examples).

overwrite

Overwrite the existing file (if any)? Defaults to TRUE.

verbose

Print output information? Defaults to FALSE.

Value

No return value.

See also

import, print_table

Examples

if (FALSE) {

  export(airquality)  # paste to clipboard
  export(airquality, file="mydata.csv")
  export(airquality, file="mydata.sav")

  export(list(airquality, npk), file="mydata.xlsx")  # Sheet1, Sheet2
  export(list(air=airquality, npk=npk), file="mydata.xlsx")  # a named list
  export(list(airquality, npk), sheet=c("air", "npk"), file="mydata.xlsx")

  export(list(a=1, b=npk, c="character"), file="abc.Rdata")  # .rda, .rdata
  d = import("abc.Rdata")  # load only the first object and rename it to `d`
  load("abc.Rdata")  # load all objects with original names to environment

  export(lm(yield ~ N*P*K, data=npk), file="lm_npk.Rdata")
  model = import("lm_npk.Rdata")
  load("lm_npk.Rdata")  # because x is unnamed, the object has a name "List1"

  export(list(m1=lm(yield ~ N*P*K, data=npk)), file="lm_npk.Rdata")
  model = import("lm_npk.Rdata")
  load("lm_npk.Rdata")  # because x is named, the object has a name "m1"
}