fc: A Package for Generalized Function Composition Using Standard Evaluation

TL;DR

The paper introduces the fc R package that enables efficient, standard evaluation-based function composition without storing intermediate values, improving runtime performance over existing methods.

Contribution

The fc package offers a novel approach to function composition in R, streamlining workflows and enhancing performance compared to magrittr and purrr.

Findings

Favorable runtime performance of fc compared to other implementations

Seamless composition without intermediate value storage

Simplifies function chaining in R

Abstract

In this article, we present a new R package fc that provides a streamlined, standard evaluation-based approach to function composition. Using fc, a sequence of functions can be composed together such that returned objects from composed functions are used as intermediate values directly passed to the next function. Unlike with magrittr and purrr, no intermediate values need to be stored. When benchmarked, functions composed using fc achieve favorable runtimes in comparison to other implementations.