Convert R vector to string vector of 1 element

Question

Im working with the programming language R now. I have a vector:

a <- c("aa", "bb", "cc")

And I want to paste these to a system command, I'm trying it this way now:

args <- paste(a, sep=" ")
system(paste("command",args, sep=" "))

But now I'm only getting the arguments aa, and I want the arguments aa, bb and cc...

Anyone knows what I'm doing wrong?

for your second paste(), i think instead of sep=" " do you want collapse=" " ? `system` is not vectorized but you are giving it three strings. — Anthony Damico, Dec 20 '12 at 13:32

score 150 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 20 '12 at 13:32

150

Use the collapse argument to paste:

paste(a,collapse=" ")
[1] "aa bb cc"

answered Dec 20 '12 at 13:32

James

What if it's a named vector and I need the labels as well? – fernal73 Apr 05 '20 at 02:22

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