R: Convert an R Object to a Character String

toString {base} | R Documentation

## Convert an R Object to a Character String

### Description

This is a helper function for `format` to produce a single character string describing an R object.

### Usage

    toString(x, ...)

    ## Default S3 method:
    toString(x, width = NULL, ...)

### Arguments

`x` | The object to be converted.
`width` | Suggestion for the maximum field width. Values of `NULL` or `0` indicate no maximum. The minimum value accepted is 6 and smaller values are taken as 6.
`...` | Optional arguments passed to or from methods.

### Details

This is a generic function for which methods can be written: only the default method is described here. Most methods should honor the `width` argument to specify the maximum display width (as measured by `nchar(type = "width")` of the result.

The default method first converts `x` to character and then concatenates the elements separated by `", "`. If `width` is supplied and is not `NULL`, the default method returns the first `width - 4` characters of the result with `....` appended, if the full result would use more than `width` characters.

### Value

A character vector of length 1 is returned.

### Author(s)

Robert Gentleman

### See Also

`format`

### Examples

    x <- c("a", "b", "aaaaaaaaaaa")
    toString(x)
    toString(x, width = 8)

[Package base version 3.1.2 Index]