Suppress output of a function

I'm looking to suppress the output of one command (in this case, the apply function).

Is it possible to do this without using sink()? I've found the described solution below, but would like to do this in one line if possible.

How to suppress output

Solution 1:

It isn't clear why you want to do this without sink, but you can wrap any commands in the invisible() function and it will suppress the output. For instance:

1:10 # prints output
invisible(1:10) # hides it

Otherwise, you can always combine things into one line with a semicolon and parentheses:

{ sink("/dev/null"); ....; sink(); }

Solution 2:

Use the capture.output() function. It works very much like a one-off sink() and unlike invisible(), it can suppress more than just print messages. Set the file argument to /dev/null on UNIX or NUL on windows. For example, considering Dirk's note:

> invisible(cat("Hi\n"))
Hi

> capture.output( cat("Hi\n"), file='NUL')
>