问题
I have seen the use of %>% (percent greater than percent) function in some packages like dplyr and rvest. What does it mean? Is it a way to write closure blocks in R?
回答1:
%...% operators
%>% has no builtin meaning but the user (or a package) is free to define operators of the form %whatever% in any way they like. For example, this function will return a string consisting of its left argument followed by a comma and space and then it's right argument.
"%,%" <- function(x, y) paste0(x, ", ", y)
# test run
"Hello" %,% "World"
## [1] "Hello, World"
The base of R provides %*% (matrix mulitiplication), %/% (integer division), %in% (is lhs a component of the rhs?), %o% (outer product) and %x% (kronecker product). It is not clear whether %% falls in this category or not but it represents modulo.
expm The R package, expm, defines a matrix power operator %^%. For an example see Matrix power in R .
operators The operators R package has defined a large number of such operators such as %!in% (for not %in%). See http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/operators/operators.pdf
Pipes
magrittr In the case of %>% the magrittr R package has defined it as discussed in the magrittr vignette. See http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/magrittr/vignettes/magrittr.html
magittr has also defined a number of other such operators too. See the Additional Pipe Operators section of the prior link which discusses %T>%, %<>% and %$% and http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/magrittr/magrittr.pdf for even more details.
dplyr The dplyr R package used to define a %.% operator which is similar; however, it has been deprecated and dplyr now recommends that users use %>% which dplyr imports from magrittr and makes available to the dplyr user. As David Arenburg has mentioned in the comments this SO question discusses the differences between it and magrittr's %>% : Differences between %.% (dplyr) and %>% (magrittr)
pipeR The R package, pipeR, defines a %>>% operator that is similar to magrittr's %>% and can be used as an alternative to it. See http://renkun.me/pipeR-tutorial/
The pipeR package also has defined a number of other such operators too. See: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pipeR/pipeR.pdf
postlogic The postlogic package defined %if% and %unless% operators.
wrapr The R package, wrapr, defines a dot pipe %.>% that is an explicit version of %>% in that it does not do implicit insertion of arguments but only substitutes explicit uses of dot on the right hand side. This can be considered as another alternative to %>%. See https://winvector.github.io/wrapr/articles/dot_pipe.html
Bizarro pipe. This is not really a pipe but rather some clever base syntax to work in a way similar to pipes without actually using pipes. It is discussed in http://www.win-vector.com/blog/2017/01/using-the-bizarro-pipe-to-debug-magrittr-pipelines-in-r/ The idea is that instead of writing:
1:8 %>% sum %>% sqrt
## [1] 6
one writes the following. In this case we explicitly use dot rather than eliding the dot argument and end each component of the pipeline with an assignment to the variable whose name is dot (.) . We follow that with a semicolon.
1:8 ->.; sum(.) ->.; sqrt(.)
## [1] 6
Update Added info on expm package and simplified example at top. Added postlogic package.
回答2:
My understanding after reading the link offered by G.Grothendieck is that %>% is an operator that pipes functions in order to improve readability and productivity as it's easier to follow the flow of multiple functions through these pipes than going backwards when multiple function are nested.
回答3:
%>% is similar to pipe in Unix. For example, in
a <- combined_data_set %>% group_by(Outlet_Identifier) %>% tally()
the output of combined_data_set will go into group_by and its output will go into tally, then the final output is assigned to a.
This gives you handy and easy way to use functions in series without creating variables and storing intermediate values.
回答4:
The R packages dplyr and sf import the operator %>% from the R package magrittr.
Help is available by using the following command:
?'%>%'
Of course the package must be loaded before by using e.g.
library(sf)
The documentation of the magrittr forward-pipe operator gives a good example: When functions require only one argument, x %>% f is equivalent to f(x)
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27125672/what-does-function-mean-in-r