as.character converts tibble() to list()

tidyverse
1

I'm currently uploading large JSON's to Postgres and convert these to character text to be available in one cell. After which I could use them in next session by using; eval(parse(text = text) , however tibble() objects are converted to list() when using as.character(), is there a way around this?

A small example:

      df <- list(tibble(a = tibble(a  = "some text", 
                                   b  = "more text"), 
                        b = c("char")))
      
      text <- as.character(df)

Which results in the following string:

text
[1] "list(a = list(a = \"some text\", b = \"more text\"), b = \"char\")"

Thanks,

Thijs

2

Use dput and capture.output to get code you can run to recreate an object.

text <- capture.output(dput(df))
# capture.output splits lines like they'd print, so combine them
text <- paste0(text, collapse = "")
text
# [1] "list(structure(list(a = structure(list(a = \"some text\", b = \"more text\"),
# row.names = c(NA, -1L), class = c(\"tbl_df\", \"tbl\", \"data.frame\")), b = \"char\"),
# row.names = c(NA, -1L), class = c(\"tbl_df\", \"tbl\", \"data.frame\")))"

as.character converts an object's value(s) into whatever text the object's developer thought appropriate. In the case of lists, it looks like code you'd write. And a tibble (like a data.frame) is actually a list that can do a few more tricks. So, as.character treats it like a list.

But, for example, factors are converted to their levels. You can't always recreate them from what as.character gives.

3 Likes
3

Perfect, that did the trick!

Thanks

4

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5

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