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% File src/library/base/man/write.Rd
% Part of the R package, https://www.R-project.org
% Copyright 1995-2018 R Core Team
% Distributed under GPL 2 or later
\name{write}
\title{Write Data to a File}
\usage{
write(x, file = "data",
ncolumns = if(is.character(x)) 1 else 5,
append = FALSE, sep = " ")
}
\alias{write}
\arguments{
\item{x}{the data to be written out, usually an atomic vector.}
\item{file}{a \code{\link{connection}}, or a character string naming
the file to write to. If \code{""}, print to the standard output
connection.
When \code{\link{.Platform}$OS.type != "windows"}, and it
is \code{"|cmd"}, the output is piped to the command given
by \file{cmd}.
}
\item{ncolumns}{the number of columns to write the data in.}
\item{append}{if \code{TRUE} the data \code{x} are appended to the
connection.}
\item{sep}{a string used to separate columns. Using \code{sep = "\t"}
gives tab delimited output; default is \code{" "}.}
}
\description{
The data (usually a matrix) \code{x} are written to file \code{file}.
If \code{x} is a two-dimensional matrix you need to transpose it to get the
columns in \code{file} the same as those in the internal representation.
}
\references{
Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988)
\emph{The New S Language}.
Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
}
\seealso{
\code{write} is a wrapper for \code{\link{cat}}, which gives further
details on the format used.
\code{\link{save}} for writing any \R objects,
\code{\link{write.table}} for data frames,
and \code{\link{scan}} for reading data.
}
\examples{
# create a 2 by 5 matrix
x <- matrix(1:10, ncol = 5)
fil <- tempfile("data")
# the file data contains x, two rows, five cols
# 1 3 5 7 9 will form the first row
write(t(x), fil)
if(interactive()) file.show(fil)
unlink(fil) # tidy up
# Writing to the "console" 'tab-delimited'
# two rows, five cols but the first row is 1 2 3 4 5
write(x, "", sep = "\t")
}
\keyword{file}
\keyword{connection}