Convert elements of a Vector to Strings in R Language – toString() Function

toString() Function in detail

The toString() function in R is used to generate a single character string that describes an R object.

Syntax:

toString(x, width = NULL)

Parameters:

• x: An R object (e.g., vector, matrix, etc.)
• width: Suggestion for the maximum field width. Values of NULL or 0 imply no maximum. The minimum accepted value is 6, and smaller values are treated as 6.

toString() Function in R Language Examples

Example 1: Basic Example of toString() Function

# R program to illustrate
# toString function

# Initializing a numeric vector
vec <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

# Calling the toString() function
result <- toString(vec)
print(result)

Output:

[1] "1, 2, 3, 4, 5"

Example 2: Formatting with toString() Function

# R program to illustrate
# toString function with width parameter

# Initializing a character vector
chars <- c("Apple", "Banana", "Cherry")

# Applying the toString() function with different widths
print(toString(chars, width = 6))
print(toString(chars, width = 10))
print(toString(chars, width = 15))

Output:

[1] "App..."
[1] "Apple, ..."
[1] "Apple, Ba..."

Example 3: Convert Matrix to String

# Matrix with 2 rows and 3 columns
mat <- matrix(c(10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60), nrow = 2, ncol = 3)

# Printing the matrix
print("Matrix:")
print(mat)

# Converting matrix to string
mat_str <- toString(mat)

# Printing the string representation
print("Matrix as String:")
print(mat_str)

Output:

[1] "Matrix:"
     [,1] [,2] [,3]
[1,]   10   30   50
[2,]   20   40   60
[1] "Matrix as String:"
[1] "10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60"