Merge Two Lists in R

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.

This is a very simple adaptation of the modifyList function by Sarkar. Because it is recursive, it will handle more complex situations than mapply would, and it will handle mismatched name situations by ignoring the items in 'second' that are not in 'first'.

appendList <- function (x, val) 
{
    stopifnot(is.list(x), is.list(val))
    xnames <- names(x)
    for (v in names(val)) {
        x[[v]] <- if (v %in% xnames && is.list(x[[v]]) && is.list(val[[v]])) 
            appendList(x[[v]], val[[v]])
        else c(x[[v]], val[[v]])
    }
    x
}

> appendList(first,second)
$a
[1] 1 2

$b
[1] 2 3

$c
[1] 3 4

If lists always have the same structure, as in the example, then a simpler solution is

mapply(c, first, second, SIMPLIFY=FALSE)