[R] how to inspect content of save() file

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 4/22/2009 12:59 PM, Benno Pütz wrote:
> Am 22.Apr.2009 um 17:21 schrieb Dimitri Liakhovitski:
> 
>> Why do you use save()?
>> Can't you write out data frame(s) with your variables in a .txt or a
>> .csv file and then read in just the variable names?
>>
> I could, but ...
> 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As save() writes a binary (and by default compressed) format that  
>>> is not
>>>
> 
> ... the files I look at now have a size of around 875MB (and this is  
> after compression of the binary format) - text files (even compressed)  
> are usually bigger.
> 
> But while this question arose from these files, it is the structure of  
> the files I am after.

It is not designed to be read bit-by-bit.  If you want to read only part 
of the data, the only easy way is to write it in multiple files.

You can read the documentation for the format in the source (see 
src/main/serialize.c), but I don't think it would be easy to put 
together a function to do what you want.

Duncan Murdoch