Native pipes

reverse <- function(text) {
  strsplit(text, "")[[1]] |>
    rev() |>
    paste(collapse = "")
}

From R 4.1.0 (introduced May 2021), the base language has native pipes, allowing a syntax more typical of functional languages such as F#.

For code such as a() |> b(), the result of a() automatically becomes the first parameter of b(), so this is another way of writing b(a()).

Note that the pipe operator in R needs a function call such as rev() on the right hand side, not a function name such as rev. We must include the parentheses. This syntax contrasts with some other languages that use pipes, and is a fairly common source of confusion.

The underlying approach in the above code is the same as split-reverse.

Pipes could similarly be used for UTF8-reverse:

reverse <- function(text) {
  utf8ToInt(text) |>
    rev() |>
    intToUtf8()
}

Pipes give a good balance of terseness and readability when chaining together a series of operations, so they have become very popular among R programmers.

Before R 4.1.0, the only way to use pipes was with the %>% operator from the magrittr library. This is still available and has some advanced features not implemented in native pipes. However, native pipes are significantly simpler, require no library import, and are now preferred for most purposes.