dplyr Pipe Operations

We shall use the flights dataset from the nycflights13 package. The tidyverse is loaded for the dplyr package.

library(nycflights13)
library(tidyverse)

We’ve shown you simple examples of the pipe above, but its real power arises when you start to combine multiple verbs. For example, imagine that you wanted to find the fast flights to Houston’s IAH airport: you need to combine filter(), mutate(), select(), and arrange():

flights |> 
  filter(dest == "IAH") |> 
  mutate(speed = distance / air_time * 60) |> 
  select(year:day, dep_time, carrier, flight, speed) |> 
  arrange(desc(speed))

# A tibble: 7,198 × 7
    year month   day dep_time carrier flight speed
   <int> <int> <int>    <int> <chr>    <int> <dbl>
 1  2013     7     9      707 UA         226  522.
 2  2013     8    27     1850 UA        1128  521.
 3  2013     8    28      902 UA        1711  519.
 4  2013     8    28     2122 UA        1022  519.
 5  2013     6    11     1628 UA        1178  515.
 6  2013     8    27     1017 UA         333  515.
 7  2013     8    27     1205 UA        1421  515.
 8  2013     8    27     1758 UA         302  515.
 9  2013     9    27      521 UA         252  515.
10  2013     8    28      625 UA         559  515.
# ℹ 7,188 more rows

Even though this pipeline has four steps, it’s easy to skim because the verbs come at the start of each line: start with the flights data, then filter, then mutate, then select, then arrange.

What would happen if we didn’t have the pipe? We could nest each function call inside the previous call:

arrange(
  select(
    mutate(
      filter(
        flights, 
        dest == "IAH"
      ),
      speed = distance / air_time * 60
    ),
    year:day, dep_time, carrier, flight, speed
  ),
  desc(speed)
)

# A tibble: 7,198 × 7
    year month   day dep_time carrier flight speed
   <int> <int> <int>    <int> <chr>    <int> <dbl>
 1  2013     7     9      707 UA         226  522.
 2  2013     8    27     1850 UA        1128  521.
 3  2013     8    28      902 UA        1711  519.
 4  2013     8    28     2122 UA        1022  519.
 5  2013     6    11     1628 UA        1178  515.
 6  2013     8    27     1017 UA         333  515.
 7  2013     8    27     1205 UA        1421  515.
 8  2013     8    27     1758 UA         302  515.
 9  2013     9    27      521 UA         252  515.
10  2013     8    28      625 UA         559  515.
# ℹ 7,188 more rows

Or we could use a bunch of intermediate objects:

flights1 <- filter(flights, dest == "IAH")
flights2 <- mutate(flights1, speed = distance / air_time * 60)
flights3 <- select(flights2, year:day, dep_time, carrier, flight, speed)
arrange(flights3, desc(speed))

# A tibble: 7,198 × 7
    year month   day dep_time carrier flight speed
   <int> <int> <int>    <int> <chr>    <int> <dbl>
 1  2013     7     9      707 UA         226  522.
 2  2013     8    27     1850 UA        1128  521.
 3  2013     8    28      902 UA        1711  519.
 4  2013     8    28     2122 UA        1022  519.
 5  2013     6    11     1628 UA        1178  515.
 6  2013     8    27     1017 UA         333  515.
 7  2013     8    27     1205 UA        1421  515.
 8  2013     8    27     1758 UA         302  515.
 9  2013     9    27      521 UA         252  515.
10  2013     8    28      625 UA         559  515.
# ℹ 7,188 more rows

While both forms have their time and place, the pipe generally produces data analysis code that is easier to write and read.