How to bind two lists with same structure?

Here's a go at it:

library(purrr)

rec_map <- function(fizz, buzz) {
  if(is.atomic(fizz) | is.null(names(fizz))){
    c(fizz, buzz)
  } else {
    imap(fizz,
         ~rec_map(fizz[[.y]], buzz[[.y]]))
  }
}

temp <- rec_map(foo, bar)

all.equal(temp, wonderful)
#> [1] TRUE

I'm by no means a computer scientist, so take the solution with a grain of salt. I am not certain about the behavior desired when there are no names for one level, but then one level down there are names (e.g., foo$c). So I just combined the results (c()) if we encountered a level without names.

edit to take a number of lists:

prec_map <- function(...){
  dots <- list(...)
  first_el = dots[[1]]
  if(is.atomic(first_el) | is.null(names(first_el))){
    do.call(c, dots)
  } else {
    imap(first_el,
         function(el, nme){
           one_level_down <- map(dots, nme)
           do.call(prec_map, one_level_down)
         })
  }
}

temp <- prec_map(foo, bar)

all.equal(temp, wonderful)
[1] TRUE

I haven't tested it out thoroughly, but light testing looks like it gets the job done.

list_merge does something close to the requirements:

library(purrr)

res <- list_merge(foo, !!! bar)

all.equal(wonderful, list_merge(foo, !!! bar))
# [1] "Component “c”: Length mismatch: comparison on first 3 components"       
# [2] "Component “c”: Component 1: Component 1: Numeric: lengths (3, 6) differ"
# [3] "Component “c”: Component 2: Component 1: Numeric: lengths (3, 6) differ"

The only difference seems to be for elements that are unnamed lists (e.g. foo$c and bar$c), the elements of which are concatenated by position (foo$c[[1]] with bar$c[[1]], foo$c[[2]] with bar$c[[2]], and foo$c[[3]] left alone since there is no bar$c[[3]]... rather than c(foo$c, bar$c)).

---

And a parallel version could be:

plist_merge <- function(.l) {
  reduce(.l, ~ list_merge(.x, !!! .y))
}

all.equal(
  plist_merge(list(foo, bar)),
  list_merge(foo, !!! bar)
)
# [1] TRUE