transpose nested list

Question

I have a list structure which represents a table being handed to me like this

> l = list(list(1, 4), list(2, 5), list(3, 6))
> str(l)
List of 3
 $ :Lis         


        

Answer 1

A second base R method using Reduce and split in two lines is

# bind lists together into a matrix (of lists)
temp <- Reduce(rbind, l)
# split unlisted values using indices of columns
split(unlist(temp), col(temp))
$`1`
[1] 1 2 3

$`2`
[1] 4 5 6

this assumes that each list item has the same number of elements. You can add names in the second line if desired with setNames:

setNames(split(unlist(temp), col(temp)), c("x", "y"))