How to format a variable with commas, now that scales has changed

[AmeliaMN]

In the previous version of scales there was a function comma() that could be used to format a number using commas as separators. However, in 1.1.0 comma() is deprecated and it seems like the suggested replacements are things like label_comma(). I don't see vignettes for scales, and the example code in the function documentation is pretty opaque to me, but it seems like label_comma() is just for use within a ggplot2 scale_ function. What should I use to generically format a variable with commas?

library(scales)
library(dplyr)

df <- tibble(prem = c(1000.51, 1000.4, 10, 17))

df <- df %>%
  mutate(prem_formatted = label_comma(prem))
#> Error: Column `prem_formatted` is of unsupported type function

^{Created on 2020-03-12 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

[siddharthprabhu]

I think you can use number().

library(scales)
library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union

df <- tibble(prem = c(1000.51, 1000.4, 10, 17))

df %>%
  mutate(prem_formatted = number(prem, big.mark = ","))
#> # A tibble: 4 x 2
#>    prem prem_formatted
#>   <dbl> <chr>         
#> 1 1001. 1,000.51      
#> 2 1000. 1,000.40      
#> 3   10  10.00         
#> 4   17  17.00

^{Created on 2020-03-12 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

[joels]

label_comma returns a function, so the code below would work, but it's cumbersome and not really intended to be used that way.

df <- df %>%
  mutate(prem_formatted = label_comma()(prem))

In addition to siddharthprabhu's suggestion, you could also use the base format function, which works similarly (format(prem, big.mark=",")).

[mara]

Hey Amelia,

This sounds like it would be a good documentation request for the scales package. Would you mind filing an issue there?

Issues · r-lib/scales

Or, if you prefer, I'm happy to bring this over there for you.

I feel like the past two release announcements for scales could be reshaped into vignettes, and we could definitely do a better job of linking the relevant info from the ggplot2 docs.

scales 1.0.0

scales 1.1.0

Thanks for bringing this up!