Dplyr::mutate no applicable method for 'mutate_' applied to an object of class "character"

tidyverse
1

I have a directory where several csv files are stored. The files are created from a job that downloads a new report each morning and affixes the date to the end of the file. Example of files in this directory:

RAM_report2018-05-14
RAM_report2018-05-15
RAM_report2018-05-16

I have a for loop that takes everything in the directory and creates a dataframe for each report. The date the report was run is not contained within the csv file itself so I want to use mutate to add a date column to every dataframe:

file_list <- list.files(pattern = "\\.csv$")

  for (i in 1:length(file_list)){
    assign(paste0(gsub("\\..*", "", file_list[i]), read.csv(file_list[i])) %>%
      mutate(Report.Date = as.Date(gsub("\\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d")))
  }

which returns the following:

Error in UseMethod("mutate_") : 
  no applicable method for 'mutate_' applied to an object of class "character"

if I run:
str(as.Date(gsub("\\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d")))
it returns:
Date[1:1], format: "2018-5-14"

I am not sure where else to go from here and Google/SO have not returned any results that have resolved the issue.

2

file_list <- list.files(pattern = "\.csv$") for (i in 1:length(file_list)){ assign(paste0(gsub("\..*", "", file_list[i]), read.csv(file_list[i])) %>% mutate("Report.Date" = as.Date(gsub("\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d"))) }

Report.Date should not be quoted in the left-hand side of your assignment statement in mutate.

file_list <- list.files(pattern = "\\.csv$")

  for (i in 1:length(file_list)){
    assign(paste0(gsub("\\..*", "", file_list[i]), read.csv(file_list[i])) %>%
      mutate(Report.Date = as.Date(gsub("\\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d")))
  }
3

Edited my post. I had quoted it during an attempt at troubleshooting the problem. The error still persists.

4

Maybe the probablem is with how you are using assign. I rarely use that function. My typical approach would be to stash each file in a list and then possibly combine the elements of the list into a single data frame with bind_rows() (if appropriate). You could try this:

file_list <- list.files(pattern = "\\.csv$")
list.out = list() # initialize empty list
  for (i in 1:length(file_list)){
    list.out[[paste0(gsub("\\..*", "", file_list[i])]] = read.csv(file_list[i]) %>%
      mutate(Report.Date = as.Date(gsub("\\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d")))
  }
1 Like
5

Like this (?):

for (i in 1:length(file_list)){
    list.out[[paste0(gsub("\\..*", "", file_list[i]))]] = read.csv(file_list[i]) %>%
      mutate(Report.Date = as.Date(gsub("\\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d"))
  }

There was a small issue with the code you sent but I think ^ is what you were describing.

What's odd is, I have used the same loop with assign and mutate previously with no issues. I may head your direction but I would still like to know why mutate is throwing this error.

Also, this directory actually has multiple different csvs that will eventually be joined so I can't bind everything in the list together simply. Thanks for the help

6

Yes, I missed the closing parenthesis in the paste/gsub combo, but that is what I had in mind. Hopefully, someone else will chime in to answer your specific question.

7

It's a problem of misplaced parentheses. Your original code from inside the for loop, with helpful whitespace added:

assign(
  paste0(
    gsub("\\..*", "", file_list[i]),
    read.csv(file_list[i])
  ) %>%
  mutate(
    Report.Date = as.Date(gsub("\\D", "", file_list[i]), format = "%Y%m%d")
  )
)

The value returned by paste0(), which is a character vector, is being passed to mutate(). I suggest splitting up this single statement. One possibility:

# Using seq_along() to avoid 1:0 problems
for (i in seq_along(file_list)) {
  # More explicit regex to avoid problems if reports have digits in the name
  date_stamp <- gsub(".*(\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2})\\.csv$", "\\1", file_list[i])
  report_df <- read.csv(file_list[i])
  report_df[["Report.Date"]] <- as.Date(date_stamp, format = "%Y-%m-%d")
  df_name <- tools::file_path_sans_ext(file_list[i])
  assign(df_name, report_df)
}

I'd also recommend @hinkelman's advice:

But go further to suggest wrapping the reading logic in a function and using lapply:

read_report_data <- function(path) {
  date_stamp <- gsub(".*(\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2})\\.csv$", "\\1", path)
  report_df <- read.csv(path)
  report_df[["Report.Date"]] <- as.Date(date_stamp, format = "%Y-%m-%d")
  report_df
}

reports <- lapply(file_list, read_report_data)
names(reports) <- tools::file_path_sans_ext(file_list)
5 Likes
8

Thanks for pointing out the misplaced parentheses. Fixing that does exactly what I am looking for.