I'd like to use $ at the end of a magrittr/tidyverse pipeline. $ works directly next to tidyverse functions like read_csv and filter, but as soon I create a pipeline with %>% it raises an error. Here is a simple reproducible example.
# Load libraries and create a dummy data file
library(dplyr)
library(readr)
write_csv(data_frame(x=c(0,1), y=c(0,2)), 'tmp.csv')
# This works
y <- read_csv('tmp.csv')$y
str(y)
# This also works
df_y <- read_csv('tmp.csv')
y <- filter(df_y, y > 0)$y
str(y)
# This does not work
y <- read_csv('tmp.csv') %>% filter(y > 0)$y
My questions are:
1) What are the underlying explanations/mechanics for why using $ at the end of a pipepline does not work?
2) What's a best practice way for what I am trying to accomplish? Specifically, to get a vector as the end result of a pipeline?
It does not work because it thinks that the function is $, not filter, and tries to run:
"$"(., filter(y > 0), y)
which, of course, makes no sense.
Suppose DF is as shown below. Then any of the subsequent lines of code work as expected:
DF <- data.frame(y = seq(-3, 3))
DF %>% filter(y > 0) %>% "$"(y)
## [1] 1 2 3
DF %>% { filter(., y > 0)$y }
## [1] 1 2 3
DF %>% filter(y > 0) %>% "[["("y")
## [1] 1 2 3
library(magrittr) # supplies extract2 as an alias for [[
DF %>% filter(y > 0) %>% extract2("y")
## [1] 1 2 3