Remove NULL elements from list of lists

Question

How do I remove the null elements from a list of lists, like below, in R:

lll <- list(list(NULL),list(1),list("a"))

The object I want would look like:

lll <- list(list(1),list("a"))

I saw a similar answer here: How can I remove an element from a list? but was not able to extend it from simple lists to a list of lists.

EDIT

Bad example above on my part. Both answers work on simpler case (above). What if list is like:

lll <- list(list(NULL),list(1,2,3),list("a","b","c"))

How to get:

lll <- list(list(1,2,3),list("a","b","c"))

Answer 1

This recursive solution has the virtue of working on even more deeply nested lists.

It's closely modeled on Gabor Grothendieck's answer to this quite similar question . My modification of that code is needed if the function is to also remove objects like list(NULL) (not the same as NULL ), as you are wanting.

## A helper function that tests whether an object is either NULL _or_ 
## a list of NULLs
is.NullOb <- function(x) is.null(x) | all(sapply(x, is.null))

## Recursively step down into list, removing all such objects 
rmNullObs <- function(x) {
   x <- Filter(Negate(is.NullOb), x)
   lapply(x, function(x) if (is.list(x)) rmNullObs(x) else x)
}

rmNullObs(lll)
# [[1]]
# [[1]][[1]]
# [1] 1
# 
# 
# [[2]]
# [[2]][[1]]
# [1] "a"

Here is an example of its application to a more deeply nested list, on which the other currently proposed solutions variously fail.

LLLL <- list(lll)
rmNullObs(LLLL)
# [[1]]
# [[1]][[1]]
# [[1]][[1]][[1]]
# [[1]][[1]][[1]][[1]]
# [1] 1
# 
# 
# [[1]][[1]][[2]]
# [[1]][[1]][[2]][[1]]
# [1] "a"

Answer 2

Here's an option using Filter and Negate combination

Filter(Negate(function(x) is.null(unlist(x))), lll)
# [[1]]
# [[1]][[1]]
# [1] 1
#
#
# [[2]]
# [[2]][[1]]
# [1] "a"

Answer 3

Using purrr

purrr::map(lll, ~ purrr::compact(.)) %>% purrr::keep(~length(.) != 0)
[[1]]
[[1]][[1]]
[1] 1

[[1]][[2]]
[1] 2

[[1]][[3]]
[1] 3


[[2]]
[[2]][[1]]
[1] "a"

[[2]][[2]]
[1] "b"

[[2]][[3]]
[1] "c"

Answer 4

For this particular example you can also use unlist with its recursive argument.

lll[!sapply(unlist(lll, recursive=FALSE), is.null)]
# [[1]]
# [[1]][[1]]
# [1] 1
#
#
# [[2]]
# [[2]][[1]]
# [1] "a"

Answer 5

Since you have lists in lists, you probably need to run l/sapply twice, like:

lll[!sapply(lll,sapply,is.null)]

#[[1]]
#[[1]][[1]]
#[1] 1
#
#
#[[2]]
#[[2]][[1]]
#[1] "a"

Answer 6

There is a new package rlist on CRAN, thanks to Kun Ren for making our life easier.

    list.clean(.data, fun = is.null, recursive = FALSE)

or for recursive removal of NULL:

    list.clean(.data, fun = is.null, recursive = TRUE)

Answer 7

Quick fix on Josh O'Brien's solution. There's a bit of an issue with lists of functions

is.NullOb <- function(x) if(!(is.function(x))) is.null(x) | all(sapply(x, is.null)) else FALSE

## Recursively step down into list, removing all such objects 
rmNullObs <- function(x) {
  if(!(is.function(x))) {
    x = x[!(sapply(x, is.NullOb))]
    lapply(x, function(x) if (is.list(x)) rmNullObs(x) else x)
  }
}