How to Datapasta

Pasting a table as a formatted tibble definition with tribble_paste()

You can copy this:

And make this appear in your source editor, at the current cursor:

tribble(
                                  ~X,          ~Location, ~Min, ~Max,
                    "Partly cloudy.",         "Brisbane",   19,   29,
                    "Partly cloudy.", "Brisbane Airport",   18,   27,
                  "Possible shower.",       "Beaudesert",   15,   30,
                    "Partly cloudy.",        "Chermside",   17,   29,
    "Shower or two. Possible storm.",           "Gatton",   15,   32,
                  "Possible shower.",          "Ipswich",   15,   30,
                    "Partly cloudy.",    "Logan Central",   18,   29,
                     "Mostly sunny.",            "Manly",   20,   26,
                    "Partly cloudy.",    "Mount Gravatt",   17,   28,
                  "Possible shower.",            "Oxley",   17,   30,
                    "Partly cloudy.",        "Redcliffe",   19,   27
    )

tibble::tribble() or ‘transposed tibble’ is a really neat function that allows a tibble to be written in human readable format (Thanks be to Hadley).

To paste data as a tribble() call, just copy the table header and data rows, then paste into the source editor using the addin Paste as tribble. For best results, assign the addin to a memorable keyboard shortcut, e.g. ctrl + shift + t. See Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts.

tribble_paste() is a flexible function that guesses the separator and types of the data it pulls from the clipboard. Mostly this seems to work well. Ocassionally it epic-fails. The supported separators are \| (pipe), \t (tab), , (comma), ;(semicolon). Most data copied from the internet or spreadsheets will be tab delimited.

Pasting a list as a horizontal vector with vector_paste()

A list could be a row or column of a spreadsheet or intermediate output. With the Paste as vector addin you can go from something like:

Mint    Fedora  Debian  Ubuntu  OpenSUSE

or

Mint,Fedora,Debian,Ubuntu,OpenSUSE

or

Mint
Fedora
Debian
Ubuntu
OpenSUSE

to

c("Mint", "Fedora", "Debian", "Ubuntu", "OpenSUSE")

This is pasted into the souce editor at the current cursor.

Just like tribble_patset(), vector_paste() has a flexible parser that can guess the type and separator of the data. The supported separators are \| (pipe), \t (tab), , (comma), ;(semicolon) and end of line. The recommended keyboard shortcut is crtl + alt + shift + v.

Pasting a list as a vertical vector with vector_paste_vertical()

Given the same types of list inputs as above, the Paste as vector (vertical) addin pastes the output with each element on its own line, e.g.:

c("Mint",
  "Fedora",
  "Debian",
  "Ubuntu",
  "OpenSUSE")

This is much nicer for long lists. I have found this is actually the version I use more often. I recommend using ctrl + shift + v as keyboard shortcut.