saveRDSobject

SaveRDSobject refers to the process of saving a single R object to disk in a serialized form using the base R function saveRDS. The saved file can later be reloaded to reconstruct the exact object in memory with readRDS, preserving its structure, attributes, and class.

The saveRDS function typically takes the form: saveRDS(object, file, ascii = FALSE, version = NULL, compress = TRUE). The object can be any R object. The file argument specifies the path to the output file, which is commonly given a .rds extension. The ascii parameter, when TRUE, stores the data as ASCII text rather than binary. The version parameter allows selecting the serialization format, depending on the R version. The compress parameter controls compression; by default it is TRUE, which enables compression to reduce file size. Compression can also be disabled (compress = FALSE) or adjusted in some versions with a numeric level.

A key distinction is that saveRDS stores only the value of the object, not its name. To restore a named object, you assign the result of readRDS to a variable, e.g., my_object <- readRDS("my_object.rds"). This differs from save, which can store multiple objects and preserve their names within a workspace image.

Example: df <- data.frame(a = 1:3, b = c("x","y","z")); saveRDS(df, "df.rds"); df_restored <- readRDS("df.rds").

Use saveRDS for persisting a single object for later reuse or sharing between sessions, and save for storing multiple objects or preserving a workspace. As with all deserialization, readRDS should come from trusted sources.