Differences between %.% (dplyr) and %>% (magrittr)

Question

The dplyr package introduced the %.% operator to pass the left hand side as an argument of the function on the right hand side, similar to a *NIX pipe. The magrittr package is a much more lightweight package that exists to define only that pipe-like operator.

Yet one uses %.% and the other %>%.

Is there any difference between the two? Can I just use %>% even in dplyr code, or will that cause subtle bugs?

On inspecting the code, they take very different paths early on, so simple eyeball comparison would suggest that they're different. I haven't been able to find anything documented when I search the web for them, nor have I run across anything in the documentation itself.

Update: possible answers lurking in the comments here: http://blog.rstudio.org/2014/01/17/introducing-dplyr/ — Ari B. Friedman, May 13 '14 at 00:55

score 36 · Answer 1 · answered May 13 '14 at 00:58

36

See the very first item in the current NEWS file:

dplyr now imports %>% from magrittr (#330). I recommend that you use this instead of %.% because it is easier to type (since you can hold down the shift key) and is more flexible

answered May 13 '14 at 00:58

Dirk Eddelbuettel

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1

but now I can see this info and (maybe?) not incur the rtfm "penalty" ? – WestCoastProjects May 19 '18 at 21:27
1

SOF is a better vehicle for fuzzy ("I don't even know what exactly the term is for that concept..") documentation searching – WestCoastProjects May 19 '18 at 21:29
I would say this should be the new accepted answer because the other one is more or less obsolete at this point. – qdread Jan 10 '19 at 20:37

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '21 at 15:55

dplyr now imports %>% from magrittr and uses it by default. See this answer for details.

Differences include

you can use a . as placeholder for the left-hand side, e.g.
```
 iris %>% plot(Sepal.Length ~ Sepal.Width, data = .)
```
%>% respects (rhs), e.g.
```
 1:10 %>% (call("sum"))
 1:10 %>% (function(x) x^2 + 2*x) 
```
For a more useful example of this, see
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/0c69b019d0b4f6ae5050
For single argument function calls, you can omit parens:
```
 "2014-05-18" %>% as.Date
```

Differences between %.% (dplyr) and %>% (magrittr)

2 Answers2

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