Godfrey van der Linden wrote:
G'day, All.

I've recently started writing up my dissertation and need to consider how to 
store the research results. I'd like to use the binary compressed save() format 
as it is considerably smaller than the raw data.  However, will a future R be 
able to read it into the indefinite future or would I be better off just 
compressing the text data files? The doc says:

     All R platforms use the XDR (bigendian) representation of C ints
     and doubles in binary save-d files, and these are portable across
     all R platforms. (ASCII saves used to be useful for moving data
     between platforms but are now mainly of historical interest.)

The format is well known and platform agnostic, both excellent properties, but 
will I be able to read the data into a more modern version of R into the 
foreseeable future?


Yes, that's the intention. It can sometimes go wrong: e.g. if you have an S4 object you'll likely need to have a compatible version of the package installed when you load the object again. But for simple data types there will be no problem.

Duncan Murdoch

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