Dear John,
some more experienced users might give you a different and more helpful
answer, but I was not really convinced by the pipe operator until I
tried it out, for the same reasons as you.
In my opinion, the pipe operator is there only to improve the
readability of your code. Think about e.g. format()ing or round()ing the
example you gave: you start having a lot of imbricated functions and it
becomes difficult to read (because of lots of brackets, commas and so
on, and it gets worse when adding arguments). The pipe operator makes it
clearer.
An alternative to the pipe operator with good readability is creating
intermediary objects, but you create a lot of useless objects. Depending
on the size of the objects, it could become problematic.
Somehow, I just ended up paraphrasing Wickham & Grolemund
(https://r4ds.had.co.nz/pipes.html); they explain the advantages much
better than I can.
In any case, once I started using it, I realized that all the pros for
the pipe operator are real and now I like using it!
Best,
Ivan
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On 03/01/2023 17:48, Sorkin, John wrote:
I am trying to understand the reason for existence of the pipe operator, %>%,
and when one should use it. It is my understanding that the operator sends the
file to the left of the operator to the function immediately to the right of the
operator:
c(1:10) %>% mean results in a value of 5.5 which is exactly the same as the
result one obtains using the mean function directly, viz. mean(c(1:10)). What is
the reason for having two syntactically different but semantically identical ways
to call a function? Is one more efficient than the other? Does one use less memory
than the other?
P.S. Please forgive what might seem to be a question with an obvious answer. I
am a programmer dinosaur. I have been programming for more than 50 years. When
I started programming in the 1960s the only pipe one spoke about was a bong.
John
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