How to check if data frame exists in R environment?

Question

I am trying to add rows to a data frame if it exists, or assign it to initial data frame in case it doesn't exists. I have tried exists(), missing(), etc, but nothing is working for me.

exists(data) && is.data.frame(get(data))

Error in exists(data) : object 'data' not found

Any help would be highly appreciated. I am trying to do something like

if(exists(data))
    data <- rbind(data,new_data)
  else
    data <- new_data

What kind of code are you writing that you don't know if an object exists? — Roland, Apr 06 '17 at 17:15
I think you should use missing() inside the function not exists('data') — Medhat, Apr 19 '17 at 13:49

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 06 '17 at 17:13

13

If you read the documentation you’ll see that it says that exists requires

a variable name (given as a character string).

In other words, write:

exists('data') && is.data.frame(get('data'))

answered Apr 06 '17 at 17:13

Konrad Rudolph

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How to check if data frame exists in R environment?

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