title: R memory efficient way to store many data frames?
body: <p>I am reading several files together into a list of data frames to be able to apply functions to the combined data, but I am running into memory allocation problems when I have too many data frames ("Error: R cannot allocate memory").</p>
  
  <p>e.g. variable number of data frames read, lets say for now 3 data frames:</p>
  
  <pre><code>x = data.frame(A=rnorm(100), B=rnorm(200))
  y = data.frame(A=rnorm(30), B=rnorm(300))
  z = data.frame(A=rnorm(20), B=rnorm(600))
  listDF &lt;- list(x,y,z)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Error: R cannot allocate memory</p>
  
  <p>I was wondering whether someone here knows whether for example an [ array or one single data frame with many columns ] would be a more efficient way of storing and manipulating data frames. </p>
  
  <p>The list of data frames is a very practical way because I can manipulate the many columns in the data based on the name of the data frame, when dealing with a variable number of data frames this is convenient. Anyway, if there are any ideas/any ways you like doing this, please share them :) Thank you!</p>