Open In App

How to Fix: Error in select unused arguments in R?

Improve
Improve
Like Article
Like
Save
Share
Report

In this article, we will be looking toward the approach to fix the error in selecting unused arguments in the R programming language.

Error in selecting unused arguments: The R compiler produces this error when a programmer tries to use the select() function of the dplyr package in R provided that the MASS package loaded. R tries to make use of the select() function from the MASS package instead when such an error takes place. This article focuses on how to fix this error.

Error: Error in select(., cyl, mpg) : unused arguments (cyl, mpg) 

When the error might occur:

Consider the following R program.

Example:

R




# R program to demonstrate when the 
# error might occur
  
# Importing libraries
library(dplyr)
library(MASS)
  
# Determine the average mpg grouped by 'cyl'
mtcars %>% select(cyl, mpg) %>% group_by(cyl) %>% summarize(avg_mpg = mean(mpg))


Output:

Interpretation: The compiler produces this error because there is a clash between the select() function from the MASS package and the select() function from the dplyr package.

How to Fix the Error:

This error can be eliminated by using the select() function directly from the dplyr package. 

Example:

R




# R program to demonstrate how to 
# fix the error
  
# Importing libraries
library(dplyr)
library(MASS)
  
# Determine the average mpg grouped by 'cyl'
mtcars %>%
  dplyr::select(cyl, mpg) %>%
  group_by(cyl) %>%
  summarize(avg_mpg = mean(mpg))


Output:

Interpretation: The code compiled successfully without any error because dplyr explicitly uses the select() function in the dplyr package rather than the MASS package.


Last Updated : 18 Mar, 2022
Like Article
Save Article
Previous
Next
Share your thoughts in the comments
Similar Reads