Why do I get different outputs for calling "replicate" with and without pipe "%>%" in R?

[alireza5969]

Hi! This is more of a question than a bug or issue.

So I asked it on StackOverflow. But I ask it here in order to be found more easily by other users who encounter the same question.

The question

I want to generate a character vector with 20 elements, each has a random string.

So I generate a random string with the following code:

sample(x = c(letters, LETTERS), size = sample.int(100, 1), replace = T) %>% paste0(collapse = "")

and I generate the vector with this:

replicate(n = 20, expr = sample(x = c(letters, LETTERS), size = sample.int(100, 1), replace = T) %>% paste0(collapse = ""))

(I am basically putting the first code chunk in replicate as an argument.) and the output is the following (which is exactly what I want):

 [1] "DyHpcnruLfKHOsvy"                                                                          
 [2] "lQqwOkKD"                                                                                  
 [3] "XddKDCtOJqZHxAgHqreDwWSBQkDCBdwFclHMFhuCzXXwb"                                             
 [4] "bmuiUUdsnHJsxIEyeLClvbLGBbfEgXFVsScrWxiTcZxPNTTwAJGZDVgJzDKUG"                             
 [5] "yBDZYKxPXXGFwmlPWNMQuUJsfRXsBoQhuVXnYfMNkHFpmAgSRafGBzkKu"                                 
 [6] "LLuNdUoayRwtLqRJKrnxERpMmlntghfkjUqPkxMMubUozsLbPOFESOqtAWKoojOrttVCQlIYkyGRglr"           
 [7] "KuydhJOVZNNDrrMLDeWda"                                                                     
 [8] "ItwNtPGIQDsqCRBoVUCkClgHzCUiYRAiHIQRqpGBpfzRXgmWFArRtmnWhtciPgLlqrVs"                      
 [9] "BqqEjCpUHLzOlsmqiAOchAKysbtUCzce"                                                          
[10] "JJzdyoFqFnZOeLAABK"                                                                        
[11] "bakCawEaOkMspowlFUsAMjAbMxNxguHAHLomiGtenMuENNuPElGwqdqNdVS"                               
[12] "OEtuDejCDVfDwGjKbjWSCsicrRmqGGpWyqMfaGGPNkJhJMbgUtkjbcwitLqVojCERLxTWaCNFRltxgiwdJAbUtoksW"
[13] "crVVVzIyWbAlfyFndgipAZZJLcMqtEtZtBpbisbyAUWsKTJLiwyNvyVPPuoxOkafEeLARYDEOqEoh"             
[14] "QgAZkacEMBbGebUCToXFTLSqqlYhqpbdsPYvIrwJhfpgDcPiJlfiATEEDrYahyXgxLEVXvsbQ"                 
[15] "jHSYxhskNMxYnnbGQLQgTJKsuRXEeDpiPlonDABrXxivwepNNvZGrugSfHoMi"                             
[16] "CdCDpUjlUyLwiujvcLcxpNZjtxUMTMVYxnjCEQqbJQOXZJeTLHXQRbHaIsOIDmKeyNainhphvwEAHscCAhOjUsqQe" 
[17] "XvoelRDEYrxMfffBjRzmFPrLRjayCLRFVpWxzjcIxkRZQiPutModt"                                     
[18] "FNjvlFdyrRTVDWvnXVWjckCDFUkxnbUfkqYDNIPZVMOfjUejEKiuhhTXdi"                                
[19] "qsQDQtaVyoNVHtNNltPqLEuNGDxiscsOsXZfhaUNdBCoSwcouhhpwFhfCcqYPPFXrnjKqnlEknuKsaWVizaIacMiT" 
[20] "ykGqCILONPhzEABAuNjtEjzXxeFLnybwZdVEbDdzDQoDKmIiLvZNhoEEEvYJS" 

But here is the problem. When I try to pipe the first code chuck into replicate using magrittr's pipe (%>%), I get an output with similar strings!

This is how I do it:

sample(x = c(letters, LETTERS), size = sample.int(100, 1), replace = T) %>% paste0(collapse = "") %>% replicate(n = 20, expr = ., simplify = "array")

also, I tried to wrap them into parentheses:

(sample(x = c(letters, LETTERS), size = sample.int(100, 1), replace = T) %>% paste0(collapse = "")) %>% replicate(n = 20, expr = ., simplify = "array")

But, in both cases, this is the undesirable output:

 [1] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [2] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [3] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [4] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [5] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [6] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [7] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [8] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
 [9] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[10] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[11] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[12] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[13] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[14] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[15] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[16] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[17] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[18] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[19] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"
[20] "yNLJofKIlodQuFVzseeYOmjcxJRxFzgSXWCFoBhCFyJplcgVrrIEhoSSDJXHWhlkWkDHdtKexZFEvIHFokUNg"

What do you think the problem is here?

ALSO Other users have found confusing results, too:

Oh wow! Base R's new pipe, |> behaves differently: sample(x = c(letters, LETTERS), size = sample.int(100, 1), replace = T) |> replicate(n = 20, expr = _, simplify = "array"). At first, I agree with your results but base R's pipe now confuses me!