I have a set of CSV files. I want to package them up and export the data to a single Excel file that contains multiple worksheets. I read in the CSV files as a set of data frames.

My problem is how to construct the command in openxlsx, I can do it manually, but I am having a list construction issue. Specifically how to add a data frame as a subcomponent of a named list and then pass as a parameter to write.xlsx()

Example

Ok, so I first list the CSV files on disk and generate a set of data frames in memory...

# Generate a list of csv files on disk and shorten names... 
filePath <- "../02benchmark/results/results_20170330/"
filePattern <- "*.csv"
fileListwithPath = list.files(path = filePath, pattern = filePattern, full.names = TRUE)
fileList = list.files(path = filePath, pattern = filePattern, full.names = FALSE)

datasets <- gsub("*.csv$", "", fileList)
datasets <- gsub("sample_", "S", datasets)
datasets

# Now generate the dataframes for each csv file...
list2env(
  lapply(setNames(fileListwithPath, make.names(datasets)),
         read.csv), envir = .GlobalEnv)

Example Output:

dput(datasets)
c("S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839", "S10000_T4.3.0_201703301843", 
"S20000_R3.3.2_201703301826", "S20000_T4.3.0_201703301832", "S280000_R3.3.2_201704020847", 
"S280000_T4.3.0_201704021100", "S290000_R3.3.2_201704020447", 
"S290000_T4.3.0_201704020702", "S30000_R3.3.2_201703301803", 
"S30000_T4.3.0_201703301817", "S310000_R3.3.2_201704012331", 
"S310000_T4.3.0_201704020242", "S320000_R3.3.2_201704011827", 
"S320000_T4.3.0_201704012128", "S330000_R3.3.2_201704011304", 
"S330000_T4.3.0_201704011546", "S340000_R3.3.2_201704010652", 
"S340000_T4.3.0_201704011010", "S350000_R3.3.2_201704010020", 
"S350000_T4.3.0_201704010404", "S360000_R3.3.2_201703311819", 
"S360000_T4.3.0_201703312134", "S370000_R3.3.2_201703310914", 
"S370000_T4.3.0_201703311301", "S380000_R3.3.2_201703310134", 
"S380000_T4.3.0_201703310509", "S390000_R3.3.2_201703301846", 
"S390000_T4.3.0_201703302252", "S40000_R3.3.2_201703301738", 
"S40000_T4.3.0_201703301752", "S50000_R3.3.2_201703301707", "S50000_T4.3.0_201703301724", 
"S60000_R3.3.2_201703301624", "S60000_T4.3.0_201703301647", "S70000_R3.3.2_201703301535", 
"S70000_T4.3.0_201703301602", "S80000_R3.3.2_201703301430", "S80000_T4.3.0_201703301508", 
"S90000_R3.3.2_201703301324", "S90000_T4.3.0_201703301400")

Now we have a set of data frames and we wish to create a single excel file with multiple worksheets...

wb <- createWorkbook()
saveWorkbook(wb, 'output.xlsx')

lapply(names(myList), function(x) write.xlsx(myList[[x]], 'output.xlsx', sheetName=x, append=TRUE))

Problem:

The problem is I can create the list structure manually and can confirm it works BUT I cannot seem to construct the list automatically.

myList <- sapply(datasets,function(x) NULL)
names(myList)
str(myList)
myList$S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839 <- eval(S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839)

thus:

> str(myList)
List of 40
 $ S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839 :'data.frame':    43 obs. of  4 variables:
  ..$ function.: Factor w/ 42 levels "DF add random number vector",..: 30 25 38 42 36 39 40 29 26 22 ...
  ..$ user     : num [1:43] 2.144 0.263 0.024 0.068 0.008 ...
  ..$ system   : num [1:43] 0.63 0.065 0.001 0.004 0 ...
  ..$ elapsed  : num [1:43] 12.274 1.104 0.047 0.115 0.009 ...
 $ S10000_T4.3.0_201703301843 : NULL
 $ S20000_R3.3.2_201703301826 : NULL
 ...

Specific Problem: How to append each data frame to the list...

myList <- lapply( myList, function(x) eval(x) )

what am I doing wrong with lapply here? The above lapply() does not iterate through the list and append the data frame to the name list entry.

i.e. myList$S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839 <- eval(S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839)
> str(myList)
    List of 40
     $ S10000_R3.3.2_201703301839 :'data.frame':    43 obs. of  4 variables:
      ..$ function.: Factor w/ 42 levels "DF add random number vector",..: 30 25 38 42 36 39 40 29 26 22 ...
      ..$ user     : num [1:43] 2.144 0.263 0.024 0.068 0.008 ...
      ..$ system   : num [1:43] 0.63 0.065 0.001 0.004 0 ...
      ..$ elapsed  : num [1:43] 12.274 1.104 0.047 0.115 0.009 ...
     $ S10000_T4.3.0_201703301843 : NULL
     $ S20000_R3.3.2_201703301826 : NULL
     ...

What am I missing? All help gratefully appreciated. Yes, I am pretty certain I am missing something obvious... but... I am stumped.