What does %>% function mean in R?

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.

"%,%" 

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.

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 %>% . 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

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. See https://winvector.github.io/wrapr/articles/dot_pipe.html

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

Update Added info on expm package and simplified example at top.

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.

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