Hi All, There is a thread about the use of save(), load(), saveRDS(), and loadRDS(). It led me to think about a question regarding them.
In my personal work, I prefer using saveRDS() and loadRDS() as I don't like the risk of overwriting anything in the global environment. I also like the freedom to name an object when reading it from a file. However, for teaching, I have to teach save() and load() because, in my discipline, it is common for researchers to share their datasets on the internet using the format saved by save(), and so students need to know how to use load() and what will happen when using it. Actually, I can't recall encountering datasets shared by the .rds format. I have been wondering why save() was usually used in that case. That discussion led me to read the help pages again and I noticed the following warning, from the help page of saveRDS(): "Files produced by saveRDS (or serialize to a file connection) are not suitable as an interchange format between machines, for example to download from a website. The files produced by save <http://127.0.0.1:18888/library/base/help/save> have a header identifying the file type and so are better protected against erroneous use." When will the problem mentioned in the warning occur? That is, when will a file saved by saveRDS() not be read correctly? Saved in Linux and then read in Windows? Is it possible to create a reproducible error? Regards, Shu Fai [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
