Error with select function from dplyr

Question

When I use the select function from dplyr, it doesn't work and gives me an error stating that the column names that I want to select are unused arguments. However, if I specify dplyr before the function call like s: "dplyr::select" then it works as normal:

Here is a sample df:

 sampledf <- structure(list(CRN = c(5497L, 6515L, 7248L, 36956L, 37021L), 
        varA = structure(c(2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L), .Label = c("A", 
        "B"), class = "factor"), varB = c(NA_integer_, NA_integer_, 
        NA_integer_, NA_integer_, NA_integer_), VarC = c(NA, NA, 
        NA, NA, 2L), varD = c(NA_integer_, NA_integer_, 
        NA_integer_, NA_integer_, NA_integer_), varE = c(1L, 1L, 4L, NA, NA)), .Names = c("CRN", 
        "varA", "varB", "varC", "varD", "varE"), row.names = c(NA, 5L), class = "data.frame")

this produces the error:

 sample_error <- select(sampledf, varA)

Error in select(sampledf, varA) : unused argument (varA)

and this works:

 sample_working <- dplyr::select(sampledf, varA)

 version

version _
platform x86_64-w64-mingw32
arch x86_64
os mingw32
system x86_64, mingw32
status
major 3
minor 4.0
year 2017
month 04
day 21
svn rev 72570
language R
version.string R version 3.4.0 (2017-04-21) nickname You Stupid Darkness

And here is the session info:

sessionInfo()

R version 3.4.0 (2017-04-21) Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit) Running under: Windows >= 8 x64 (build 9200)

Matrix products: default

locale: [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252 LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252 LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252 [4] LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages: [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base

other attached packages: [1] readxl_1.0.0 bindrcpp_0.2 doBy_4.5-15 reshape2_1.4.2 ltm_1.0-0 > polycor_0.7-9 msm_1.6.4
[8] MASS_7.3-47 glmnet_2.0-10 foreach_1.4.3 Matrix_1.2-9 caret_6.0-76 lattice_0.20-35 dplyr_0.7.2
[15] purrr_0.2.3 readr_1.1.1 tidyr_0.6.3 tibble_1.3.3 > > > > > > ggplot2_2.2.1 tidyverse_1.1.1 openxlsx_4.0.17

loaded via a namespace (and not attached): [1] Rcpp_0.12.11 lubridate_1.6.0 mvtnorm_1.0-6 assertthat_0.2.0 > psych_1.7.5 R6_2.2.2
[7] cellranger_1.1.0 plyr_1.8.4 MatrixModels_0.4-1 stats4_3.4.0 > httr_1.3.1 rlang_0.1.1
[13] lazyeval_0.2.0 minqa_1.2.4 SparseM_1.77 car_2.1-4 > nloptr_1.0.4 labeling_0.3
[19] splines_3.4.0 lme4_1.1-13 stringr_1.2.0 foreign_0.8-67 munsell_0.4.3 broom_0.4.2
[25] compiler_3.4.0 modelr_0.1.1 pkgconfig_2.0.1 mnormt_1.5-5 mgcv_1.8-17 nnet_7.3-12
[31] expm_0.999-2 codetools_0.2-15 ModelMetrics_1.1.0 grid_3.4.0 nlme_3.1-131 jsonlite_1.5
[37] gtable_0.2.0 magrittr_1.5 scales_0.4.1 stringi_1.1.5 xml2_1.1.1 iterators_1.0.8
[43] tools_3.4.0 forcats_0.2.0 glue_1.1.0 hms_0.3 survival_2.41-3 parallel_3.4.0
[49] pbkrtest_0.4-7 colorspace_1.3-2 rvest_0.3.2 bindr_0.1 haven_1.1.0 quantreg_5.33

I cannot reproduce this. Either you overwrite the dplyr select() function with your own function or you loaded a package after dplyr that has it's own select() function that's taking precedence. Run conflicts(detail=TRUE) to see where the function is doubly defined. Maybe show sessionInfo() we can see what other packages you have loaded. — MrFlick
Sounds like a name clash with MASS::select. Loading dplyr after MASS will fix it. — alistaire
The packages MASS does have a select function as suggested. However, i don't actually explicitly install it. Do i need it for something? — steve zissou
@stevezissou Installation isn’t the issue. Loading is. If you didn’t load it manually, the ‹ltm› package appears to be doing it. Complain to its maintainer, or don’t use that (the ltm package also attaches two other packages; ugh). — Konrad Rudolph

EJAg EJAg · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-04T09:11:02

I had the same issue and it was caused by name clash with another package. Use: dplyr::select to specify the package.

Error with select function from dplyr

1 Answers