lift: Lift the domain of a function

Description

lift_xy() is a composition helper. It helps you compose functions by lifting their domain from a kind of input to another kind. The domain can be changed from and to a list (l), a vector (v) and dots (d). For example, lift_ld(fun) transforms a function taking a list to a function taking dots.

Usage

lift(..f, ..., .unnamed = FALSE)
lift_dl(..f, ..., .unnamed = FALSE)
lift_dv(..f, ..., .unnamed = FALSE)
lift_vl(..f, ..., .type)
lift_vd(..f, ..., .type)
lift_ld(..f, ...)
lift_lv(..f, ...)

Value

A function.

Arguments

..f: A function to lift.
...: Default arguments for ..f. These will be evaluated only once, when the lifting factory is called.
.unnamed: If TRUE, ld or lv will not name the parameters in the lifted function signature. This prevents matching of arguments by name and match by position instead.
.type: A vector mold or a string describing the type of the input vectors. The latter can be any of the types returned by typeof(), or "numeric" as a shorthand for either "double" or "integer".

from ... to <code>list(...)</code> or <code>c(...)</code>

Here dots should be taken here in a figurative way. The lifted functions does not need to take dots per se. The function is simply wrapped a function in do.call(), so instead of taking multiple arguments, it takes a single named list or vector which will be interpreted as its arguments. This is particularly useful when you want to pass a row of a data frame or a list to a function and don't want to manually pull it apart in your function.

from <code>c(...)</code> to <code>list(...)</code> or <code>...</code>

These factories allow a function taking a vector to take a list or dots instead. The lifted function internally transforms its inputs back to an atomic vector. purrr does not obey the usual R casting rules (e.g., c(1, "2") produces a character vector) and will produce an error if the types are not compatible. Additionally, you can enforce a particular vector type by supplying .type.

from list(...) to c(...) or ...

lift_ld() turns a function that takes a list into a function that takes dots. lift_vd() does the same with a function that takes an atomic vector. These factory functions are the inverse operations of lift_dl() and lift_dv().

lift_vd() internally coerces the inputs of ..f to an atomic vector. The details of this coercion can be controlled with .type.

Details

The most important of those helpers is probably lift_dl() because it allows you to transform a regular function to one that takes a list. This is often essential for composition with purrr functional tools. Since this is such a common function, lift() is provided as an alias for that operation.