Category: Administrativia

R tip: use [[ ]] wherever you can.

In R the [[ ]] is the operator that (when supplied a simple scalar argument) pulls a single element out of lists (and the [ ] operator pulls out sub-lists).

For vectors [[ ]] and [ ] appear to be synonyms (modulo the issue of names). However, for a vector [[ ]] checks that the indexing argument is a scalar, so if you intend to retrieve one element this is a good way of getting an extra check and documenting intent. Also, when writing reusable code you may not always be sure if your code is going to be applied to a vector or list in the future.

It is safer to get into the habit of always using [[ ]] when you intend to retrieve a single element.

Example with lists:

list("a", "b")[1]
#> [[1]]
#> [1] "a"

list("a", "b")[[1]]
#> [1] "a"

Example with vectors:

c("a", "b")[1]
#> [1] "a"

c("a", "b")[[1]]
#> [1] "a"

The idea is: in situations where both [ ] and [[ ]] apply we rarely see [[ ]] being the worse choice.

---

Note on this article series.

This R tips series is short simple notes on R best practices, and additional packaged tools. The intent is to show both how to perform common tasks, and how to avoid common pitfalls. I hope to share about 20 of these about every other day to learn from the community which issues resonate and to also introduce some of features from some of our packages. It is an opinionated series and will sometimes touch on coding style, and also try to showcase appropriate Win-Vector LLC R tools.