Error: could not find function "distinct" when using dplyr library for R on Windows 7

Question

I'd like to get the unique values from a column in a dataframe. With the R package dplyr, it should be possible.

This distinct(select(dataframe, column)) works great on my Mac. In RStudio on Windows 7 I encounter this:

when I run this R code:

library(dplyr)
df <- data.frame(replicate(4,sample(0:1,10,rep=TRUE)))

unique_values <- distinct(select(df, X1))

EDIT

Please check if dplyr::distinct(select(df, X1)) works? – akrun

Of course - here is the console output:

EDIT

I've not used distinct, but perhaps unique would work for you? unique(df$X1) – NPE

It does work, and it's concise too! I would still like to understand this dplyr error...

EDIT

Please add the output of sessionInfo() instead. – Roland

EDIT

some comments note that dplyr_0.2 version is old. install.packages("dplyr") gets a CRAN link to the old package. Now to figure out how to manually install dplyr_0.3.0.2.

Answer 1

Figured it out! Old R means old dplyr means no distinct() function.

To fix this, install the latest version of R:

1. go to http://www.r-project.org
2. click on 'CRAN'
3. then choose the CRAN site that you like. I like Kansas: http://rweb.quant.ku.edu/cran/
4. click on 'Download R for X' [where X is your operating system]
5. follow the installation procedure for your operating system
6. restart RStudio
7. rejoice

source: this very nice answer

Then run the command install.packages("dplyr") in the RStudio Console.

Now you can create a dataframe and use the distinct() function to get the unique values from one of its columns:

library(dplyr)

# create a dataframe with some values
df <- data.frame(replicate(4,sample(0:1,10,rep=TRUE)))
df

# select a column from that dataframe and get a list of the unique values
unique_values <- distinct(select(df, X1))
unique_values

In the console you should see:

Thanks to David Arenburg and Richard Scriven for pointing our that dplyr-0.2 is old and lacks the distinct() function. This line of thinking led to the answer.