small ggplot object (1 mb) turns into 7 gigabyte .Rdata object when saved

Question

I have a series of ggplot objects that I\'m trying to save to an .rdata file to load into a Markdown document later. The ggplot object itself is quite small (a few KB). But,

Answer 1

I stumbled upon this problem as well. This is indeed related to the environment. If you want to save your plots as an Rdata file, then you should be creating a new environment inside the function that is generating your plot, so that the complete environment doesn't get saved. Example:

makePlot <- function(plot.data){
  env <- new.env(parent = globalenv())
  env$subset <- plot.data

  my.plot <- with(env, {
    my.plot <- ggplot(subset, ...) 
    return(my.plot)
  })

  return(my.plot)
}