https://petermeissner.de/blog/2020/09/03/utils-treasures-moifyList/
The function offers a way to merge two lists into one similar to c(), the concatenate function. But other than with using c() items with the same keys will be updated instead of simply added. Thus modifyList() presents the answer to the question:
options_default <-
list(
plots = TRUE,
font_face = "Comic Sans",
author = "No One In Particular"
)
options_patch <-
list(
author = "Me MySelf And I"
)
options_to_use <- modifyList(options_default, options_patch)
options_to_use
# $plots
# [1] TRUE
# $font_face
# [1] "Comic Sans"
# $author
# [1] "Me MySelf And I"