Loop for writing multiple dataframes to excel files in R

Question

I have been splitting up dataframes and writing them to txt files in R, but now I've found out that they need to be written to xlsx files. I installed the xlsx package and modified my loop, but it doesn't work anymore. I get "Error in [[.default(dots[[2L]], 1L) : subscript out of bounds".

Here is the loop:

trts<-vector("list", length=6)
trt<-as.character(c("CC", "CCW", "C2", "S2", "PF", "P"))

for(i in 1:6){
trts[[i]]<-co2[co2$trt == trt[i],]
  write.xlsx(trts[[i]], paste(trt[i], "CO2", "xlsx", sep="."))

Here is the data (my df is co2): Split this.

What's the deal?

Sorry, I get "Error in [[.default(dots[[2L]], 1L) : subscript out of bounds". — Nazer
– Nazer, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 15:54
Usually that happens if you do something like List[[7]] for a list of length < 7 or something. Try adding print(i) as a line in your loop and see if you can figure out which one is giving you the problem. — Señor O
– Señor O, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 16:17
Thanks for the tip, @Senor O, but I'm not sure I understand what is printed. It is just the numbers 1,2,3. I thought it would go up to six. But this exact codes works when making txt files, just not for excel files. — Nazer
– Nazer, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 20:12
Exactly - it would go up to 6 if your loop worked correctly. Now you know that your loop stops working sometime in between print(3) and print(4). — Señor O
– Señor O, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 20:24

zx8754 · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-22 15:57:18Z

1

Why not just output it as CSV?

#Read Data
co2 <- read.table("~/Observed COBS CO2.txt",
                                header=T, quote="\"")

#Output to CSV
apply(as.matrix(unique(co2$trt)),1,
      function(x){
        write.table(co2[co2$trt == x,],
                    paste(x, "co2",".csv",sep=""),
                    sep=",",row.names=F)}
      )

answered Jul 22, 2013 at 15:57

zx8754

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5 Comments

Nazer Over a year ago

I guess because with a .csv the person using excel won't be able to just double click on it and open it. They have to go through the extra steps of telling excel that it is a .csv. I'll end up with about 50 files, so I'm hoping R can make things smoother for that person. Thanks for the non-loop code though!

zx8754 Over a year ago

Double clicking on .csv file just opens same way as any Excel file.

Nazer Over a year ago

Yeah! That's what I thought, but other .csv files I have written from R are opening with all of my text in the first column. I haven't run your code yet, but I'll try that and see if it clears up the problems I didn't know I was having before I tried .xlsx.

Nazer Over a year ago

Yep! Thanks a lot! Wonder why I have been using .txt anyway. . .

zx8754 Over a year ago

If it was helpful, upvoting would help.

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