R help - Feb 2006 - List Conversion

Hello,

I have a list (mode and class are list) in R that is many elements long and of
the form:
>length(list)
[1] 5778
>list[1:4]
$ID1
[1] "num1"
$ID2
[1] "num2" "num3"
$ID3
[1] "num4"
$ID4
[1] NA

I'd like to convert the $ID2 value to be in one element rather than in
two.?? It shows up as c(\"num2\", \"num3\") if I try to use
paste(list[2], collapse="").  I need to do this over the length of the
entire list, however list2 <- apply(list, 1, paste, collapse="")
tells me 'Error in apply : dim(X) must have a positive length'. 
dim(list) does not have a positive length, which I think is due to the fact that
it's a list and not a matrix or data frame.

What I want to get is:
>list[1:4]
$ID1
[1] "num1"
$ID2
[1] "num2 num3"
$ID3
[1] "num4"
$ID4
[1] NA

Thanks.
Liz

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>>>>> "LD" == Liz Dem <liz392 at mail.com>
writes:
    LD> I have a list (mode and class are list) in R that is many elements
long and of the form:
    >> length(list)
    LD> [1] 5778
    >> list[1:4]
    LD> $ID1
    LD> [1] "num1"
    LD> $ID2
    LD> [1] "num2" "num3"
    LD> $ID3
    LD> [1] "num4"
    LD> $ID4
    LD> [1] NA

    LD> I'd like to convert the $ID2 value to be in one element rather
    LD> than in two.?? It shows up as c(\"num2\",
\"num3\") if I try to
    LD> use paste(list[2], collapse="").
You want list[[2]], not list[2]:
> tt <- list(ID1="num1", ID2=c("num2",
"num3"), ID3 = "num4", ID4 =NA)
> tt
$ID1
[1] "num1"

$ID2
[1] "num2" "num3"

$ID3
[1] "num4"

$ID4
[1] NA
> paste(tt[2], collapse="")
[1] "c(\"num2\",
\"num3\")"
>  paste(tt[[2]], collapse="")
[1] "num2num3"
>  paste(tt[[2]], collapse=" ")
[1] "num2 num3"


    LD> I need to do this over the length of the entire list, however
    LD> list2 <- apply(list, 1, paste, collapse="") tells me
'Error in
    LD> apply : dim(X) must have a positive length'.
You want to use `lapply' not `apply':
> tt1 <- lapply(tt, paste, collapse=" ")
> tt1
$ID1
[1] "num1"

$ID2
[1] "num2 num3"

$ID3
[1] "num4"

$ID4
[1] "NA"

    LD> What I want to get is:
    >> list[1:4]
    LD> $ID1
    LD> [1] "num1"
    LD> $ID2
    LD> [1] "num2 num3"
    LD> $ID3
    LD> [1] "num4"
    LD> $ID4
    LD> [1] NA
In that case, if you don't want NA's to turn into strings:
> tt2 <- lapply(tt, function(x) if(is.na(x[1])) NA else paste(x,
collapse=" "))
> tt2
$ID1
[1] "num1"

$ID2
[1] "num2 num3"

$ID3
[1] "num4"

$ID4
[1] NA

HTH.

Cheers,

        Berwin

========================== Full address ===========================Berwin A
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