Default value to replace NULL

[hadley]

 issues %>% map(c("milestone", "title")) %>% map_chr(~ . %||% "")

[hadley]

Maybe

 issues %>% map(c("milestone", "title")) %>% map_chr(empty = "")

[hadley]

Or make it explicit

pluck <- function(y, default = NULL) {
  function(x) {
    x[[y]] %||% default
  }
}
issues %>% map_chr(pluck(c("milestone", "title"), ""))

Or

pluck <- function(..., default = NULL) {
  y <- c(...)
  function(x) {
    x[[y]] %||% default
  }
}

issues %>% map_chr(pluck("milestone", "title", default = ""))

But second form makes you think that pluck(1, "blah", 2) might work, and would be harder to call from as_function

[jennybc]

I think this is what this issue is about? Hope it's in the right place.

I'm trying to use a character vector as extractor function in map_chr(). All elements of the input list do indeed have appropriately named components but, in some cases, the value is NULL. This prevents the use of map_chr().

library(purrr)
x <- list(one = list(always = "a", sometimes = "b"),
          two = list(always = "b", sometimes = NULL))
x %>% map_chr("always")
#> one two 
#> "a" "b"
x %>% map_chr("sometimes")
#> Error in map_chr(., "sometimes"): Result 2 is not a length 1 character

This seems to get the job done for the time being:

x %>%
  map("sometimes") %>%
  map_if(is.null, ~ NA_character_) %>% 
  flatten_chr()
#> [1] "b" NA

[hadley]

This is what it would look like with pluck():

library(purrr)
x <- list(
  one = list(always = "a", sometimes = "b"),
  two = list(always = "b", sometimes = NULL)
)
x %>% map_chr("always")
x %>% map_chr(pluck("sometimes", NA_character_))

But it should probably be an adverb:

hopefully <- function(.f, default = NULL) {
  .f <- as_function(.f)
  function(x) {
    .f(x) %||% default
  }
}
x <- list(
  one = list(always = "a", sometimes = "b"),
  two = list(always = "b", sometimes = NULL)
)
x %>% map_chr(hopefully("sometimes", NA_character_))

(But hopefully isn't the best name!)

[lionel-]

could be maybe() since we didn't use it for the other functions.
But it would be clearer if it mentioned NULL though.

unnull()? with_default()?

[tjmahr]

I like null_with as an analogy to dplyr::failwith, but the name should follow the pattern set by safely, quietly, and possibly. If the metaphor is filling in missing values, then fully or completely (or filling/completing).

[jennybc]

This also feels a lot like data import and declaring how missing values present themselves, e.g. read.table(na.strings = ...) or readr::read_delim(na = ...). You could imagine map_*() and flatten_*() functions having something like that, with NULL being one of the things converted to NA by default.

An adverb feels a bit odd because it feels more like data is getting modified, than a function. Even though I do understand that when I say 'map: fetch me sometimes!', an extractor function is being applied under the hood.

[hadley]

@jennybc hmmm, that's true and now that I think about it, there's no reason that map_chr(c("a", "b", "c"), default = NA) couldn't work. Do you have any thoughts on what the argument should be called? default? empty? null?

[hadley]

And maybe map_chr(list("a", 1, "b", 2")) should also work

[lionel-]

I think .empty = NA is clear.

How do we signal we want to ignore NULLs and possibly get an output smaller than the input? .empty = NULL?

[hadley]

Or missing?

[hadley]

@lionel- I was thinking and realised empty isn't quite right because you're actually indexing into elements that don't exist (not just that they're empty). And the same constraints still apply to map - the output has to be the same length as the input.

[lionel-]

The problem with .missing is that it suggests it's a replacement for NA values. Maybe simply .null = NA?

[hadley]

How about absent?

[lionel-]

I think absent is unnecessarily abstract. In comparison null is concrete and would be clearer and more evocative since all R programmers know what a NULL value is — or should read adv-r ;)

[hadley]

But null is fundamentally misleading, because we're not replacing a NULL that exists, we're replacing a NULL that doesn't exist because we're indexing past the end of a list.

[tjmahr]

A drop-in value for values that didn't exist? Is that a default? Fallback?

[lionel-]

oooh I was confused. I thought it was about giving a default to actual NULL results instead of failing.

Since one peculiarity of the R language is that indexing absent values also yields NULL, I think it's still valid to call that argument .null.

mtcars$absent$absent
#> NULL

And then the argument .null can also serve the purpose of giving a default value for actual NULL results when .f is a function and not an index, which could be useful as well.

[lionel-]

@tjmahr I may like .default better actually :)

It would also work for actual NULL results.

[hadley]

@lionel- the inconsistency is that mtcars[[12]] fails