We’re proud to announce version 1.2.0 of the tibble package. Tibbles are a modern reimagining of the data frame, keeping what time has shown to be effective, and throwing out what is not. Grab the latest version with:

install.packages("tibble")

This is mostly a maintenance release, with the following major changes:

  • More options for adding individual rows and (new!) columns

  • Improved function names

  • Minor tweaks to the output

There are many other small improvements and bug fixes: please see the release notes for a complete list.

Thanks to Jenny Bryan for add_row() and add_column() improvements and ideas, to William Dunlap for pointing out a bug with tibble’s implementation of all.equal(), to Kevin Wright for pointing out a rare bug with glimpse(), and to all the other contributors. Use the issue tracker to submit bugs or suggest ideas, your contributions are always welcome.

Adding rows and columns#

There are now more options for adding individual rows, and columns can be added in a similar way, illustrated with this small tibble:

df <- tibble(x = 1:3, y = 3:1)
df
#> # A tibble: 3 × 2
#>       x     y
#>   <int> <int>
#> 1     1     3
#> 2     2     2
#> 3     3     1

The add_row() function allows control over where the new rows are added. In the following example, the row (4, 0) is added before the second row:

df %>%
  add_row(x = 4, y = 0, .before = 2)
#> # A tibble: 4 × 2
#>       x     y
#>   <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1     1     3
#> 2     4     0
#> 3     2     2
#> 4     3     1

Adding more than one row is now fully supported, although not recommended in general because it can be a bit hard to read.

df %>%
  add_row(x = 4:5, y = 0:-1)
#> # A tibble: 5 × 2
#>       x     y
#>   <int> <int>
#> 1     1     3
#> 2     2     2
#> 3     3     1
#> 4     4     0
#> 5     5    -1

Columns can now be added in much the same way with the new add_column() function:

df %>%
  add_column(z = -1:1, w = 0)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 4
#>       x     y     z     w
#>   <int> <int> <int> <dbl>
#> 1     1     3    -1     0
#> 2     2     2     0     0
#> 3     3     1     1     0

It also supports .before and .after arguments:

df %>%
  add_column(z = -1:1, .after = 1)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 3
#>       x     z     y
#>   <int> <int> <int>
#> 1     1    -1     3
#> 2     2     0     2
#> 3     3     1     1

df %>%
  add_column(w = 0:2, .before = "x")
#> # A tibble: 3 × 3
#>       w     x     y
#>   <int> <int> <int>
#> 1     0     1     3
#> 2     1     2     2
#> 3     2     3     1

The add_column() function will never alter your existing data: you can’t overwrite existing columns, and you can’t add new observations.

Function names#

frame_data() is now tribble(), which stands for “transposed tibble”. The old name still works, but will be deprecated eventually.

tribble(
  ~x, ~y,
   1, "a",
   2, "z"
)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 2
#>       x     y
#>   <dbl> <chr>
#> 1     1     a
#> 2     2     z

Output tweaks#

We’ve tweaked the output again to use the multiply character × instead of x when printing dimensions (this still renders nicely on Windows.) We surround non-semantic column with backticks, and dttm is now used instead of time to distinguish POSIXt and hms (or difftime) values.

The example below shows the new rendering:

tibble(`date and time` = Sys.time(), time = hms::hms(minutes = 3))
#> # A tibble: 1 × 2
#>       `date and time`     time
#>                <dttm>   <time>
#> 1 2016-08-29 16:48:57 00:03:00

Expect the printed output to continue to evolve in next release. Stay tuned for a new function that reconstructs tribble() calls from existing data frames.