<p><a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5258/what-tools-does-cv-recommend-or-provide-for-users-to-share-their-data/5272#comment15782_5258">clarinetist</a> proposed <code>dput()</code> for R users. I also like it a lot. It has the advantage that it outputs <em>all the information</em> a data structure carries, down to the attributes. For instance, in questions about time series analysis, one of the (often) key attributes is the <code>frequency</code>, and this may get lost if a question only gives the time series values.</p>
<p>Specifically, someone may have a question about a dataset. Let's take the built-in <code>AirPassengers</code> dataset as an example. The questioner can simply type</p>
<pre><code>&gt; dput(AirPassengers)
</code></pre>
<p>and get the following output, which they simply paste into the question here at CV:</p>
<pre><code>structure(c(112, 118, 132, 129, 121, 135, 148, 148, 136, 119, 
104, 118, 115, 126, 141, 135, 125, 149, 170, 170, 158, 133, 114, 
140, 145, 150, 178, 163, 172, 178, 199, 199, 184, 162, 146, 166, 
171, 180, 193, 181, 183, 218, 230, 242, 209, 191, 172, 194, 196, 
196, 236, 235, 229, 243, 264, 272, 237, 211, 180, 201, 204, 188, 
235, 227, 234, 264, 302, 293, 259, 229, 203, 229, 242, 233, 267, 
269, 270, 315, 364, 347, 312, 274, 237, 278, 284, 277, 317, 313, 
318, 374, 413, 405, 355, 306, 271, 306, 315, 301, 356, 348, 355, 
422, 465, 467, 404, 347, 305, 336, 340, 318, 362, 348, 363, 435, 
491, 505, 404, 359, 310, 337, 360, 342, 406, 396, 420, 472, 548, 
559, 463, 407, 362, 405, 417, 391, 419, 461, 472, 535, 622, 606, 
508, 461, 390, 432), .Tsp = c(1949, 1960.91666666667, 12), class = &quot;ts&quot;)
</code></pre>
<p>(Note, as above, all the meta information being included at the end.) Then someone contemplating an answer can simply type</p>
<pre><code>AirPassengers &lt;- structure(c(112, 118, 132, 129, 121, 135, 148, 148, 136, 119, ...
</code></pre>
<p>and be guaranteed to get <em>the exact data</em> the OP was working on.</p>
<p>Of course the drawback of <code>dput()</code> is that its output is harder to work with for non-R users. However, I for one prefer this over having to read in a tabular structure and fiddling with field types and meta information.</p>
