topic-embrace-non-args: Does {{ work on regular objects?

In tidyverse/rlang: Functions for Base Types and Core R and 'Tidyverse' Features

Does ⁠{{⁠ work on regular objects?

Description

The embrace operator {{ should be used exclusively with function arguments:

fn <- function(arg) {
  quo(foo({{ arg }}))
}

fn(1 + 1)
#> <quosure>
#> expr: ^foo(^1 + 1)
#> env:  0x7ffd89aac518

However you may have noticed that it also works on regular objects:

fn <- function(arg) {
  arg <- force(arg)
  quo(foo({{ arg }}))
}

fn(1 + 1)
#> <quosure>
#> expr: ^foo(^2)
#> env:  0x7ffd8a633398

In that case, ⁠{{⁠ captures the value of the expression instead of a defused expression. That's because only function arguments can be defused.

Note that this issue also applies to enquo() (on which ⁠{{⁠ is based).

Why is this not an error?

Ideally we would have made ⁠{{⁠ on regular objects an error. However this is not possible because in compiled R code it is not always possible to distinguish a regular variable from a function argument. See Why are strings and other constants enquosed in the empty environment? for more about this.

tidyverse/rlang documentation built on Oct. 31, 2024, 5:35 p.m.