How to Convert List to Vector in R (With Examples)

You can use one of the following methods to convert a list to a vector in R:

#use unlist() function
new_vector <- unlist(my_list, use.names = FALSE)

#use flatten_*() function from purrr library
new_vector <- purrr::flatten(my_list)

The following examples show how to use each of these methods in practice with the following list:

#create list
my_list <- list(A = c(1, 2, 3),
                B = c(4, 5),
                C = 6)

#display list
my_list

$A
[1] 1 2 3

$B
[1] 4 5

$C
[1] 6

Example 1: Convert List to Vector Using unlist() Function

The following code shows how to convert a list to a vector using the unlist() function:

#convert list to vector
new_vector <- unlist(my_list)

#display vector
new_vector

A1 A2 A3 B1 B2  C 
 1  2  3  4  5  6

Note that you can specify use.names = FALSE to remove the names from the vector:

#convert list to vector
new_vector <- unlist(my_list, use.names = FALSE)

#display vector
new_vector

[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6

**Example 2: Convert List to Vector Using flatten_* Function**

The following code shows how to convert a list to a vector using the family of flatten_* functions from the purrr package:

library(purrr) 

#convert list to vector
new_vector <- flatten_dbl(my_list)

#display vector
new_vector

[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6

The flatten_dbl() function specifically converts the list to a vector of type double.

Note that we could use flatten_chr() to convert a character list to a vector of type character:

library(purrr) 

#define character list
my_char_list <- list(A = c('a', 'b', 'c'),
                     B = c('d', 'e'),
                     C = 'f')

#convert character list to character vector
new_char_vector <- flatten_chr(my_char_list)

#display vector
new_char_vector

[1] "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f"

Check out this page for a complete list of the family of flatten_* functions.

Note: If you’re working with an extremely large list, the flatten_* functions will perform quicker than the unlist() function from base R.