Native Pipe Backport

[selkamand]

Hi,

Thanks so much for your work on this package. Its a really great idea!

Don't know if its possible, but I'd love to use the native pipe |> (introduced in R 4.1) in my packages without forcing everyone on less recent version to update.

Is this possible / in scope for backports

If not, do you have any ideas for alternative solutions?

[dmurdoch]

I am pretty sure that's not possible, because |> is not legal syntax in the earlier versions. I don't know any good workaround, but it might be possible to maintain two sets of sources for your functions: one that works in R 4.1, and one that works in earlier versions, which can be produced automatically by deparsing your code (since x |> f() deparses to f(x)). It would need a lot of care to get it right and keep it right, and probably isn't worth doing.

The alternative, much easier, way to support pre-4.1 R is to use magrittr pipes instead. Or just skip pipes in your source code.

[mllg]

I also don't see a way to backport changes in the parser.