Sure! Here's an updated code that can handle varying lengths of data. It uses the `max.col()` function to determine the maximum width of each column based on the length of the data, and then formats the output accordingly.
```r
# create a data frame
df <- data.frame(
name = c("Alice", "Bob", "Charlie", "David", "Elizabeth"),
age = c(25, 30, 35, 40, 45),
salary = c(50000, 60000, 70000, 80000, 90000)
)
# open a connection to a file
con <- file("output.txt", "w")
# determine the maximum width of each column
max_widths <- apply(df, 2, function(x) max(nchar(as.character(x))))
# create the format string based on the maximum widths
fmt <- paste0(paste0("%-", max_widths), "s")
fmt <- paste0(fmt, collapse = " ")
# write the header row
writeLines(sprintf(fmt, names(df)), con)
# write the data rows
for (i in seq_len(nrow(df))) {
row <- df[i, ]
writeLines(sprintf(fmt, as.character(row)), con)
}
# close the connection
close(con)
```
In this updated code, we first use the `apply()` function to determine the maximum width of each column based on the length of the data. We then create the format string based on the maximum widths using `paste0()` and `collapse = " "`. Finally, we use `sprintf()` to format each row of data using the format string, and write the output to a file using `writeLines()`.