Error with rename: [renamed variable] must be a symbol or a string, not formula

[jrosen48]

When I run rename(), like I have 100s of times before, I get a strange error:

library(dplyr, warn.conflicts = F)
rename(iris, sl = Sepal.Length)
#> Error: `sl` = Sepal.Length must be a symbol or a string, not formula

What am I missing here?

Here is my session info.:

> sessionInfo()
R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS High Sierra 10.13.1

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/libBLAS.dylib
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] dplyr_0.7.4

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] Rcpp_0.12.14     knitr_1.17       bindr_0.1        whisker_0.3-2   
 [5] magrittr_1.5     devtools_1.13.4  R6_2.2.2         rlang_0.1.4.9000
 [9] stringr_1.2.0    tools_3.4.2      clipr_0.4.0      withr_2.1.0.9000
[13] htmltools_0.3.6  yaml_2.1.14      rprojroot_1.2    digest_0.6.12   
[17] assertthat_0.2.0 tibble_1.3.4     bindrcpp_0.2     callr_1.0.0     
[21] memoise_1.1.0    glue_1.2.0       evaluate_0.10.1  rmarkdown_1.8   
[25] reprex_0.1.1     stringi_1.1.6    compiler_3.4.2   backports_1.1.1 
[29] pkgconfig_2.0.1 

[batpigandme]

I just ran the same and it was fine. From your sessionInfo, it looks like you haven't actually loaded dplyr…

library(dplyr, warn.conflicts = F)
rename(iris, sl = Sepal.Length)
#>      sl Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width    Species
#> 1   5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2     setosa
#> 2   4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2     setosa
#> 3   4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2     setosa
#> 4   4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2     setosa
#> 5   5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2     setosa
#> 6   5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4     setosa
#> 7   4.6         3.4          1.4         0.3     setosa
#> 8   5.0         3.4          1.5         0.2     setosa
#> 9   4.4         2.9          1.4         0.2     setosa
#> 10  4.9         3.1          1.5         0.1     setosa
sessionInfo()
#> R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28)
#> Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
#> Running under: macOS Sierra 10.12.6
#> 
#> Matrix products: default
#> BLAS: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib
#> LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib
#> 
#> locale:
#> [1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8
#> 
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
#> 
#> other attached packages:
#> [1] dplyr_0.7.4.9000
#> 
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#>  [1] Rcpp_0.12.14          digest_0.6.12         rprojroot_1.2        
#>  [4] assertthat_0.2.0.9000 R6_2.2.2              backports_1.1.1      
#>  [7] magrittr_1.5          evaluate_0.10.1       rlang_0.1.4          
#> [10] stringi_1.1.6         bindrcpp_0.2          rmarkdown_1.8        
#> [13] tools_3.4.2           stringr_1.2.0         glue_1.2.0           
#> [16] purrr_0.2.4           yaml_2.1.14           compiler_3.4.2       
#> [19] pkgconfig_2.0.1       htmltools_0.3.6       tidyselect_0.2.3     
#> [22] bindr_0.1             knitr_1.17.20         tibble_1.3.4

Created on 2017-11-29 by the reprex
package (v0.1.1.9000).

[jrosen48]

sorry, just updated the session info above (I had copied the code to the clipboard to run the reprex, but hadn't run it). I'm pretty sure this didn't work, but when I install the development version, it seems to just fine:

library(dplyr, warn.conflicts = F)
rename(iris, sl = Sepal.Length) %>% str()
#> 'data.frame':    150 obs. of  5 variables:
#>  $ sl          : num  5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5 5.4 4.6 5 4.4 4.9 ...
#>  $ Sepal.Width : num  3.5 3 3.2 3.1 3.6 3.9 3.4 3.4 2.9 3.1 ...
#>  $ Petal.Length: num  1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.5 ...
#>  $ Petal.Width : num  0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 ...
#>  $ Species     : Factor w/ 3 levels "setosa","versicolor",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...

Here's my session info (below) - the same (I think) except for the dplyr after installing the development version is dplyr_0.7.4.9000 instead of dplyr_0.7.4. Can't seem to find any recent issues or commits referencing this. Thank you for your help!

> sessionInfo()
R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS High Sierra 10.13.1

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/libBLAS.dylib
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] dplyr_0.7.4.9000

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] Rcpp_0.12.14     knitr_1.17       bindr_0.1        whisker_0.3-2   
 [5] magrittr_1.5     devtools_1.13.4  tidyselect_0.2.3 R6_2.2.2        
 [9] rlang_0.1.4.9000 httr_1.3.1       stringr_1.2.0    tools_3.4.2     
[13] git2r_0.19.0     clipr_0.4.0      withr_2.1.0.9000 htmltools_0.3.6 
[17] yaml_2.1.14      rprojroot_1.2    digest_0.6.12    assertthat_0.2.0
[21] tibble_1.3.4     bindrcpp_0.2     purrr_0.2.4      callr_1.0.0     
[25] curl_3.0         memoise_1.1.0    glue_1.2.0       evaluate_0.10.1 
[29] rmarkdown_1.8    reprex_0.1.1     stringi_1.1.6    compiler_3.4.2  
[33] backports_1.1.1  pkgconfig_2.0.1

[jrosen48]

@batpigandme could I ask if you could tell me what version of dplyr you have installed?

[batpigandme]

@jrosen84 I ran that one with the dev version (should be in the sessionInfo of the reprex-- sorry, I'm on my phone atm). But rename was working fine (as far as I can recall) in the CRAN version, too. I'll double check, though.

[batpigandme]

@jrosen48 just re-ran things with the current CRAN version of dplyr (0.7.4) and everything checks out!

library(dplyr, warn.conflicts = F)
df <- rename(iris, sl = Sepal.Length)
head(df)
#>  sl Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#> 1 5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 2 4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 3 4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
#> 4 4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
#> 5 5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 6 5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa

It was fine, too, when I didn't assign to df, just did that for ease of reading.

R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Sierra 10.12.6

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/libBLAS.dylib
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] dplyr_0.7.4

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] compiler_3.4.2   magrittr_1.5     assertthat_0.2.0 R6_2.2.2         tools_3.4.2      bindrcpp_0.2    
 [7] glue_1.2.0       tibble_1.3.4     Rcpp_0.12.14     packrat_0.4.8-1  pkgconfig_2.0.1  rlang_0.1.4     
[13] bindr_0.1

[jrosen48]

thanks @batpigandme!