mjskay / explodeAssign

Explode assignment operators for R

Explode-assignment operators

This package provides two alternative assignment operators for R:

    |             ||
    V             VV
    *             **
 
 explode-       double-
 assign         explode-
                assign

Inspired by Matt Dray’s “down-assign” operator (see his tweet and blog post), the explode-assign and double-explode-assign operators are for when you really want to assign values to variables.

The main difference between {explodeAssign} and Matt Dray’s proposal is that {explodeAssign} does not require pre-processing, so all you need to do is install the package. Like Matt Dray’s proposal, it is also a terrible idea.

Installation

You can install the development version of {explodeAssign} like so:

remotes::install_github("mjskay/explodeAssign")

This is definitely never going to be on CRAN ;).

Examples

library(explodeAssign)

The explode-assignment operator is useful when you emphatically want to assign a value to a variable by dropping the value into the variable like a tiny bomb:

# note we need parens. that's okay, safety is important!
(
  1
  |
  V
  *
  x
)
#> [1] 1

x now contains the value 1:

x
#> [1] 1

Of course, sometimes we really really want to assign a value to a variable, no matter where it’s hiding (a la <<-). Thus the double-explode-assignment operator:

y = 1

f = function() {
  (
    y + 1
    ||
    VV
    **
    y
  )
}

f()
#> [1] 2
f()
#> [1] 3
f()
#> [1] 4

y
#> [1] 4

Note

{explodeAssign} is not responsible for any mishaps caused by operator precedence, stray parens, consummate Vs, or overloaded base operators. Explode-assign at your own risk.