Merge Two Lists in R

Question

I have two lists

first = list(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
second = list(a = 2, b = 3, c = 4)

I want to merge these two lists so the final product

Answer 1

Here are two options, the first:

both <- list(first, second)
n <- unique(unlist(lapply(both, names)))
names(n) <- n
lapply(n, function(ni) unlist(lapply(both, `[[`, ni)))

and the second, which works only if they have the same structure:

apply(cbind(first, second),1,function(x) unname(unlist(x)))

Both give the desired result.