# Export a dataframe to a file or a connection

## Description

This function is a wrapper to `write.table()`, to overcome possible issues with the row names.

## Usage

    export(x, file = "", ...)

## Arguments

`x` |  |  |  | The object to be written (matrix or dataframe).
`file` |  |  |  | A character string containing the path to the file to be created
`...` |  |  |  | Same arguments that are used in `write.table()`

## Details

The default convention for `write.table()` is to add a blank column name for the row names, but (despite it is the convention used for CSV files to be read by spreadsheets) that doesn't always work with all spreadsheets or other programs that attempt to import the result of `write.table()`.

This function acts as if `write.table()` was called, with only one difference: if row names are present in the dataframe (i.e. any of them should be different from the default row numbers), the final result will display a new column called `cases` in the first position, except the situation that another column called `cases` already exists in the data, when the row names will be completely ignored.

If not otherwise specified, an argument `sep = ","` is added by default.

The argument `row.names` is set to FALSE by default, since a new column is added anyways if possible.

Since this function pipes everything to `write.table()` anyway, the argument `file` can also be a connection open for writing. `""` indicates output to the console.

## Author

Adrian Dusa

## See also

The “R Data Import/Export” manual. `write.table`