R devel - Jan 2026 - Plans for the pipe bind operator?

Hello,

The experimental (undocumented?) pipe bind operator (=>) was introduced in
January 2021 (https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2021-January/080396.html).
In December 2021, Luke Tierney said that it might be dropped
(https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2021-December/081384.html).

It is still present in R-devel (to become R 4.6):

mtcars |> (\(x) lm(mpg ~ disp, data = x))()
mtcars$mpg |> quantile() |> (\(x) sprintf("%.1f (%.1f, %.1f)",
x[3], x[2], x[4]))()

Sys.setenv("_R_USE_PIPEBIND_" = TRUE)
mtcars |> x => lm(mpg ~ disp, data = x)
mtcars$mpg |> quantile() |> x => sprintf("%.1f (%.1f, %.1f)",
x[3], x[2], x[4])

Since a few years have passed, are there now any plans regarding the pipe bind
operator?

I still hope it will be officially supported, as I find it a very readable
alternative to anonymous functions in pipe chains (for cases where the
placeholder is not supported). It might be easily adopted, since similar syntax
exists in other widely used languages (e.g., arrow functions in ES6/JS).

Best,
Thomas

No current plans, too many more pressing issues.

Best,

luke

On Fri, 2 Jan 2026, SOEIRO Thomas via R-devel wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The experimental (undocumented?) pipe bind operator (=>) was introduced
in January 2021
(https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2021-January/080396.html). In December
2021, Luke Tierney said that it might be dropped
(https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2021-December/081384.html).
>
> It is still present in R-devel (to become R 4.6):
>
> mtcars |> (\(x) lm(mpg ~ disp, data = x))()
> mtcars$mpg |> quantile() |> (\(x) sprintf("%.1f (%.1f,
%.1f)", x[3], x[2], x[4]))()
>
> Sys.setenv("_R_USE_PIPEBIND_" = TRUE)
> mtcars |> x => lm(mpg ~ disp, data = x)
> mtcars$mpg |> quantile() |> x => sprintf("%.1f (%.1f,
%.1f)", x[3], x[2], x[4])
>
> Since a few years have passed, are there now any plans regarding the pipe
bind operator?
>
> I still hope it will be officially supported, as I find it a very readable
alternative to anonymous functions in pipe chains (for cases where the
placeholder is not supported). It might be easily adopted, since similar syntax
exists in other widely used languages (e.g., arrow functions in ES6/JS).
>
> Best,
> Thomas
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
-- 
Luke Tierney
Ralph E. Wareham Professor of Mathematical Sciences
University of Iowa                  Phone:             319-335-3386
Department of Statistics and        Fax:               319-335-3017
    Actuarial Science
241 Schaeffer Hall                  email:   luke-tierney at uiowa.edu
Iowa City, IA 52242                 WWW:  http://www.stat.uiowa.edu/