R apply script output in different formats for similar inputs - r

Question

I'm using a double apply function to get a list of p-values for cor.test between any two columns of two tables.
hel_plist<-apply(bc, 2, function(x) { apply(otud, 2, function(y) { if (cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value<0.05){cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value}}) })
The otud data.frame is 90X11 (90rows,11 colums or to say dim(otud) 90 11) and will be used with different data.frames.
bc and hel - are both 90X2 data.frame-s - so for both I get 2*11=22 p-values out of functions
bc_plist<-apply(bc, 2, function(x) { apply(otud, 2, function(y) { if (cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value<0.05){cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value}}) })
hel_plist<-apply(hel, 2, function(x) { apply(otud, 2, function(y) { if (cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value<0.05){cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value}}) })
For bc I will have an output with dim=NULL a list of elements of otunames$bcnames$ p-value (a format that I have always got from these scripts and are happy with)
But for hel I will get and output of dim(hel) 11 2 - an 11X2 table with p-values written inside.
Shortened examples of output.
hel_plist
+--------+--------------+--------------+
| | axis1 | axis2 |
+--------+--------------+--------------+
| Otu037 | 1.126362e-18 | 0.01158251 |
| Otu005 | 3.017458e-2 | NULL |
| Otu068 | 0.00476002 | NULL |
| Otu070 | 1.27646e-15 | 5.252419e-07 |
+--------+--------------+--------------+
bc_plist
$axis1
$axis1$Otu037
[1] 1.247717e-06
$axis1$Otu005
[1] 1.990313e-05
$axis1$Otu068
[1] 5.664597e-07
Why is it like that when the input formats are all the same? (Shortened examples)
bc
+-------+-----------+-----------+
| group | axis1 | axis2 |
+-------+-----------+-----------+
| 1B041 | 0.125219 | 0.246319 |
| 1B060 | -0.022412 | -0.030227 |
| 1B197 | -0.088005 | -0.305351 |
| 1B222 | -0.119624 | -0.144123 |
| 1B227 | -0.148946 | -0.061741 |
+-------+-----------+-----------+
hel
+-------+---------------+---------------+
| group | axis1 | axis2 |
+-------+---------------+---------------+
| 1B041 | -0.0667782322 | -0.1660606406 |
| 1B060 | 0.0214470932 | -0.0611351008 |
| 1B197 | 0.1761876858 | 0.0927570627 |
| 1B222 | 0.0681058251 | 0.0549292399 |
| 1B227 | 0.0516864361 | 0.0774155225 |
| 1B235 | 0.1205676221 | 0.0181712761 |
+-------+---------------+---------------+
How could I force my scripts to always produce "flat" outputs as in the case of bc

Answer 1

OK different output-s are caused because of the NULL results from conditional function in bc_plist case. If I'd to modify code to replace possible NULL-s with NA-s I'd get 2d tables in any case.
So to keep things constant :
bc_nmds_plist<-apply(bc_nmds, 2, function(x) { apply(stoma_otud, 2, function(y) { if (cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value<0.05){cor.test(x,y,method="spearman", exact=FALSE)$p.value}else NA}) })
And I get a 2d tabel out for bc_nmds_plist too.
So I guess this thing can be called solved - as I now have a piece of code that produces predictable output on any correct input.
If anyone has any idea how to force the output to conform to previos bc_plist format instead I would still be interested as I do actually prefer that form:
$axis1
$axis1$Otu037
[1] 1.247717e-06
$axis1$Otu005
[1] 1.990313e-05
$axis1$Otu068
[1] 5.664597e-07