Write Lines of Text to TXT File in R (3 Examples)

This article explains how to export text lines to an external TXT file in the R programming language.

The content of the tutorial is structured as follows:

Let’s start right away.

Creation of Exemplifying Data

Have a look at the following example data:

text_lines <- c("This is my first line of text.",      # Create example data
                "Another line of text.",
                "What a beautiful sentence created in R!")
text_lines                                             # Print example data
# [1] "This is my first line of text." 
# [2] "Another line of text."
# [3] "What a beautiful sentence created in R!"

The previously shown output of the RStudio console illustrates the structure of our example data – We have created a vector of character strings containing different lines of text.

Let’s write these lines of text to a TXT file!

Example 1: Write Lines of Text to TXT File Using writeLines() Function

Example 1 illustrates how to save our text lines to a TXT file using the writeLines function in R.

Within the writeLines function we have to specify the data object containing our lines of text (i.e. text_lines) and the name of the TXT file we want to create:

writeLines(text_lines, "my_file1.txt")                 # Apply writeLines function

After running the previous R code, you should find a text file in your current working directory that looks as in the screenshot below:

Example 2: Write Lines of Text to TXT File Using sink() & cat() Functions

In Example 2, I’ll illustrate how to apply the sink and cat functions to create a new text file line by line.

Have a look at the following R code:

sink("my_file2.txt")                                   # Apply sink & cat functions
cat(text_lines[1])
cat("\n")
cat(text_lines[2])
cat("\n")
cat(text_lines[3])
cat("\n")
sink()

After running this R syntax, you should find another TXT file called my_file2 in your current working directory that contains exactly the same data as the first file that we have exported in Example 1.

Example 3: Write Lines of Text to TXT File Using cat() Function & append Argument

As a third alternative, I’ll explain in this example how to use the cat function in combination with the append argument to write text lines to a text file.

As you can see in the following R code, we first have to initialize our file without specifying the append argument.

Afterwards, we can add our text line by line using the append argument:

cat(text_lines[1], file = "my_file3.txt", sep = "\n")  # Apply cat & append
cat(text_lines[2], file = "my_file3.txt", sep = "\n", append = TRUE)
cat(text_lines[3], file = "my_file3.txt", sep = "\n", append = TRUE)

At this point, you should find another text file called my_file3 containing the same sentences as in the previous examples.

The advantage of the previously shown code is that you can also add text lines at a later point.

Video, Further Resources & Summary

Do you want to know more about exporting TXT files? Then I can recommend having a look at the following video of my YouTube channel. I show the R programming codes of this article in the video:

The YouTube video will be added soon.

In addition to the video, you could have a look at the related tutorials that I have published on my website.

• Write xlsx & xls in R
• Import Text File as Single Character String
• sink Function in R
• Read Fixed Width Text File in R
• Introduction to R

In summary: In this R programming tutorial you have learned how to write text to TXT files. In case you have any further questions or comments, let me know in the comments below.