How to Combine a List of Matrices in R

You can use the following methods to combine a list of matrices in R:

Method 1: Combine List of Matrices by Rows

do.call(rbind, list_of_matrices)

Method 2: Combine List of Matrices by Columns

do.call(cbind, list_of_matrices)

The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following two matrices in R:

#define matrices
matrix1 <- matrix(1:6, nrow=3)
matrix2 <- matrix(7:12, nrow=3)

#view first matrix
matrix1

     [,1] [,2]
[1,]    1    4
[2,]    2    5
[3,]    3    6

#view second matrix 
matrix2

     [,1] [,2]
[1,]    7   10
[2,]    8   11
[3,]    9   12

Example 1: Combine List of Matrices by Rows

The following code shows how to use the rbind function to combine a list of matrices by rows:

#create list of matrices
matrix_list <- list(matrix1, matrix2)

#combine into one matrix by rows
do.call(rbind, matrix_list)

     [,1] [,2]
[1,]    1    4
[2,]    2    5
[3,]    3    6
[4,]    7   10
[5,]    8   11
[6,]    9   12

The two matrices have been combined into a single matrix by rows.

Example 2: Combine List of Matrices by Columns

The following code shows how to use the cbind function to combine a list of matrices by columns:

#create list of matrices
matrix_list <- list(matrix1, matrix2)

#combine into one matrix by columns
do.call(cbind, matrix_list)

     [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]
[1,]    1    4    7   10
[2,]    2    5    8   11
[3,]    3    6    9   12

The two matrices have been combined into a single matrix by columns.