Recursively Merge Two Named Lists

This function takes two named lists and merges them recursively. Values in the second list (b) override or extend those in the first list (a). If both a and b contain a named list at the same position, they are merged recursively.

merge_lists(a, b)

Arguments

a

A named list to be updated.

b

A named list containing values to override or add to a.

Value

A named list that is the result of merging b into a.

Examples

a <- list(x = list(y = 1, z = 2), foo = "bar")
b <- list(x = list(y = 42, new = 99), foo = "baz", extra = "new_value")
merge_lists(a, b)
#> $x
#> $x$y
#> [1] 42
#> 
#> $x$z
#> [1] 2
#> 
#> $x$new
#> [1] 99
#> 
#> 
#> $foo
#> [1] "baz"
#> 
#> $extra
#> [1] "new_value"
#>