R: Convert a List to a Character Matrix

stri_list2matrix {stringi} | R Documentation

## Convert a List to a Character Matrix

### Description

This function converts a given list of atomic vectors to a character matrix.

### Usage

    stri_list2matrix(x, byrow = FALSE, fill = NA_character_, n_min = 0)

### Arguments

`x` | a list of atomic vectors
`byrow` | a single logical value; should the resulting matrix be transposed?
`fill` | a single string, see Details
`n_min` | a single integer value; minimal number of rows (`byrow==FALSE`) or columns (otherwise) in the resulting matrix

### Details

This function is similar to the built-in `simplify2array` function. However, it always returns a character matrix, even if each element in `x` is of length 1 or if elements in `x` are not of the same lengths. Moreover, the elements in `x` are always coerced to character vectors.

If `byrow` is `FALSE`, then a matrix with `length(x)` columns is returned. The number of rows is the length of the longest vector in `x`, but no less than `n_min`. Basically, we have `result[i,j] == x[[j]][i]` if `i <= length(x[[j]])` and `result[i,j] == fill` otherwise, see Examples.

If `byrow` is `TRUE`, then the resulting matrix is a transposition of the above-described one.

This function may be useful, e.g., in connection with `stri_split` and `stri_extract_all`.

### Value

Returns a character matrix.

### See Also

Other utils: `stri_na2empty()`, `stri_remove_empty()`, `stri_replace_na()`

### Examples

    simplify2array(list(c("a", "b"), c("c", "d"), c("e", "f")))
    stri_list2matrix(list(c("a", "b"), c("c", "d"), c("e", "f")))
    stri_list2matrix(list(c("a", "b"), c("c", "d"), c("e", "f")), byrow=TRUE)

    simplify2array(list("a", c("b", "c")))
    stri_list2matrix(list("a", c("b", "c")))
    stri_list2matrix(list("a", c("b", "c")), fill="")
    stri_list2matrix(list("a", c("b", "c")), fill="", n_min=5)

[Package stringi version 1.4.6 Index]