In this tutorial, we will cover how to fix the error in selecting unused arguments in R. Error looks like below in R.
Error in select(., Species, Sepal.Length) : unused arguments (Species, Sepal.Length)
This error occurs when we try to use the select() function in R's dplyr package, but we also have the some other R package which also has select() function. For example MASS package also has select() function. Since R has already loaded select() function from the MASS package which causes an error to appear.
How to reproduce the error
To recreate the error, follow the example below :
library(dplyr)
library(MASS)
iris %>%
select(Species, Sepal.Length) %>%
group_by(Species) %>%
summarize(mean_sepalLength = mean(Sepal.Length))
Error in select(., Species, Sepal.Length) : unused arguments (Species, Sepal.Length)
How to fix the error
We can fix this error in multiple ways. See the solutions below.
Solution 1 : Double Colon
By using this code dplyr::select( ) we have made sure select( ) function gets loaded from dplyr package instead of MASS package.
iris %>% dplyr::select(Species, Sepal.Length) %>% group_by(Species) %>% summarize(mean_sepalLength = mean(Sepal.Length))
# A tibble: 3 × 2 Species mean_sepalLength 1 setosa 5.01 2 versicolor 5.94 3 virginica 6.59
In the code above we used iris dataframe and calculated the average value ofSepal.Lengthvariable by different types ofSpecies.
Solution 2 : detach Function
We can also solve this error by unloading the MASS package by using detach( ) function. This solution is less optimal than the previous one of double colon (::) because we won't be able to use MASS package further in the session if we unload it.
detach("package:MASS", unload = TRUE)
library(dplyr)
library(MASS)
mtcars %>%
select(cyl, mpg) %>%
group_by(cyl) %>%
summarize(mean_mpg = mean(mpg))
Error in select(., cyl, mpg) : unused arguments (cyl, mpg)
Similar to the previous example, we have used a double colon (::) to ask R to consider the select function from the dplyr package.
mtcars %>% dplyr::select(cyl, mpg) %>% group_by(cyl) %>% summarize(mean_mpg = mean(mpg))
# A tibble: 3 × 2
cyl mean_mpg
1 4 26.7
2 6 19.7
3 8 15.1
Deepanshu founded ListenData with a simple objective - Make analytics easy to understand and follow. He has over 10 years of experience in data science. During his tenure, he worked with global clients in various domains like Banking, Insurance, Private Equity, Telecom and HR.
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