how to remove all files from workspace except those you want to keep?

Question

I know when I want to remove all files, I simply perform

rm(list=ls(gse))

if I want to remove one file for example named "data" I can do

rm(data)

what if I have so many files and I want to remove everything but only keep one or two or few that I want ?

[This answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28142088/how-to-exclude-only-the-data-frames-from-the-global-environment-in-r/28142128#28142128) might also be useful — Rich Scriven, Mar 23 '15 at 17:36
to keep only x and y: `rm(list = setdiff(ls(), c('x','y')))` — rawr, Mar 23 '15 at 18:05
@DavidArenburg - Maybe, but not of the one I linked because this doesn't specify data types to be removed — Rich Scriven, Mar 23 '15 at 18:08

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 23 '15 at 17:29

6

For example

rm(list = ls()[!ls() %in% c("abc", "def")])

should remove everything but abc and def.

answered Mar 23 '15 at 17:29

lukeA

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 23 '15 at 17:34

0

You could, as an alternative to lukeA's nice answer, write the few files of interest to a savethese.Rdata file, then rm(list=ls(gse)) followed by re-loading the savethese.Rdata file. Klugey, but with the advantage of backing up the items you want.

answered Mar 23 '15 at 17:34

Carl Witthoft

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how to remove all files from workspace except those you want to keep?

2 Answers2