The dput() and dump() functions are used to deparse and parse R objects. This means that they convert R objects into a textual representation that can be saved to a file or passed between R sessions.
The dput() function is used to deparse a single R object. The output of dput() is a string that contains the R code that would recreate the object. For example, the following code creates a data frame and then deparses it using dput():
y <- data.frame(a = 1, b = "a")
dput(y)
The output of dput() is a string that looks like this:
structure(list(a = 1, b = "a"), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA,
-1L))
This string can be saved to a file or passed between R sessions. To read the object back in, you can use the dget() function.
The dump() function is used to deparse multiple R objects at once. The output of dump() is a string that contains the R code that would recreate all of the objects. For example, the following code creates two R objects and then deparses them using dump():
x <- "foo"
y <- data.frame(a = 1L, b = "a")
dump(c("x", "y"), file = "data.R")
The output of dump() is a string that looks like this:
x <- "foo"
y <- structure(list(a = 1L, b = "a"), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA,
-1L))
This string can be saved to a file or passed between R sessions. To read the objects back in, you can use the source() function.
The dput() and dump() functions are useful for sharing R objects or for storing them in a version control system. They can also be used to debug R code by printing out the deparsed representation of an object.
