tidyselect 0.2.0
The main point of this release is to revert a troublesome behaviour
introduced in tidyselect 0.1.0. It also includes a few features.
Evaluation rules
The special evaluation semantics for selection have been changed
back to the old behaviour because the new rules were causing too
much trouble and confusion. From now on data expressions (symbols
and calls to :
and c()
) can refer to both registered variables
and to objects from the context.
However the semantics for context expressions (any calls other than
to :
and c()
) remain the same. Those expressions are evaluated
in the context only and cannot refer to registered variables.
If you're writing functions and refer to contextual objects, it is
still a good idea to avoid data expressions. Since registered
variables are change as a function of user input and you never know
if your local objects might be shadowed by a variable. Consider:
n <- 2
vars_select(letters, 1:n)
Should that select up to the second element of letters
or up to
the 14th? Since the variables have precedence in a data expression,
this will select the 14 first letters. This can be made more robust
by turning the data expression into a context expression:
vars_select(letters, seq(1, n))
You can also use quasiquotation since unquoted arguments are
guaranteed to be evaluated without any user data in scope. While
equivalent because of the special rules for context expressions,
this may be clearer to the reader accustomed to tidy eval:
vars_select(letters, seq(1, !! n))
Finally, you may want to be more explicit in the opposite direction.
If you expect a variable to be found in the data but not in the
context, you can use the .data
pronoun:
vars_select(names(mtcars), .data$cyl : .data$drat)
New features
-
The new select helper
last_col()
is helpful to select over a
custom range:vars_select(vars, 3:last_col())
. -
:
and-
now handle strings as well. This makes it easy to
unquote a column name:(!! name) : last_col()
or-(!! name)
. -
vars_select()
gains a.strict
argument similar to
rename_vars()
. If set toFALSE
, errors about unknown variables
are ignored. -
vars_select()
now treatsNULL
as empty inputs. This follows a
trend in the tidyverse tools. -
vars_rename()
now handles variable positions (integers or round
doubles) just likevars_select()
(#20). -
vars_rename()
is now implemented with the tidy eval framework.
Likevars_select()
, expressions are evaluated without any user
data in scope. In addition a variable context is now established so
you can write rename helpers. Those should return a single round
number or a string (variable position or variable name). -
has_vars()
is a predicate that tests whether a variable context
has been set (#21). -
The selection helpers are now exported in a list
vars_select_helpers
. This is intended for APIs that embed the
helpers in the evaluation environment.
Fixes
one_of()
argumentvars
has been renamed to.vars
to avoid
spurious matching.