Save all objects that match a regular expression in .RData file

save_by_regex.R

# Function scans global environment for occurence of regular expression (`regex`), 
# and saves all objects in `filename`.
save_by_regex <- function(regex, filename) {
  lscall = ls(envir=.GlobalEnv)
  stuff_to_save = grep(regex, lscall, value=T)
  if (length(stuff_to_save)>0) {
    cat('saving...\n')
    cat(paste0('(', paste0(stuff_to_save, collapse=', '), ')\n'))
    save(list=stuff_to_save , file = filename)
    cat('...done.\n') } else {
      cat('No objects to save. Verify regular expression.\n')
    }
}

## Demo
results_1 = 1:10
results_2 = runif(100)
results_3 = c('a', 'b', 'c')

save_by_regex('^results', 'my_objects.RData')