R help - Nov 2010 - Possible to pretty-printing using str()?

Dear list,

I'm looking for a suitable way to sort of "one-line-pretty-print"
an
arbitrary R object in some of my log outputs.

Consider this:

cat(paste("The object/value is: ", x, ".",
sep=""), sep="\n")

No problem if x is of class:
  - character (length=1)
  - numeric   (length=1)
  - logical   (length=1)

For lengths > 1 I can get around by paste(x, collapse=my.delimiter). So:

cat(paste("The object/value is: ", paste(x, collapse=my.delimiter),
".",
sep=""), sep="\n")

"Problem" if x is of class
  - data.frame
  - matrix
  - list
  - other complex objects

For those objects something like the output of str() arranged in one line of
class 'character' would be great. 

Is that possible somehow?

Thanks for any comments,
Janko

########## SYSTEM INFO ##########
Windows XP SP3
R 2.12.0 (patched as of 2010-11-22)
Eclipse 3.6.1 (Helios)
StatET 0.9.x
###############################

A short annotation: 
I already considered deparsing the object via deparse(x), but that's not
exactly the info I'd like. I'm only interested in a short summary like
str()
would give me, not in the deparsed object.

Thx,
Janko

########## SYSTEM INFO ##########
Windows XP SP3
R 2.12.0 (patched as of 2010-11-22)
Eclipse 3.6.1 (Helios)
StatET 0.9.x
###############################

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at
r-project.org]
> Im Auftrag von Janko Thyson
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 23. November 2010 20:32
> An: r-help at r-project. org
> Betreff: [R] Possible to pretty-printing using str()?
> 
> Dear list,
> 
> I'm looking for a suitable way to sort of
"one-line-pretty-print" an
> arbitrary R object in some of my log outputs.
> 
> Consider this:
> 
> cat(paste("The object/value is: ", x, ".",
sep=""), sep="\n")
> 
> No problem if x is of class:
>   - character (length=1)
>   - numeric   (length=1)
>   - logical   (length=1)
> 
> For lengths > 1 I can get around by paste(x, collapse=my.delimiter).
> So:
> 
> cat(paste("The object/value is: ", paste(x,
collapse=my.delimiter),
> ".",
> sep=""), sep="\n")
> 
> "Problem" if x is of class
>   - data.frame
>   - matrix
>   - list
>   - other complex objects
> 
> For those objects something like the output of str() arranged in one
> line of
> class 'character' would be great.
> 
> Is that possible somehow?
> 
> Thanks for any comments,
> Janko
> 
> ########## SYSTEM INFO ##########
> Windows XP SP3
> R 2.12.0 (patched as of 2010-11-22)
> Eclipse 3.6.1 (Helios)
> StatET 0.9.x
> ###############################
> 
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