Dplyr pipe (%>%) within mutate()? - r

Question

The piping in dplyr is cool and sometimes I want to clean up one column by applying multiple commands to it. Is there a way to use the pipe within the mutate() command? I notice this most when using regex and it comes up also in other contexts. In the example below, I can clearly see the different manipulations I am applying to the column "Clean" and I am curious if there is a way to do something that mimics %>% within mutate().
library(dplyr)
phone <- data.frame(Numbers = c("1234567890", "555-3456789", "222-222-2222",
"5131831249", "123.321.1234","[phone]",
"[phone]", "555-666-7777 x100"),
stringsAsFactors = F)
phone2 <- phone %>%
mutate(Clean = gsub("[A-Za-z].*", "", Numbers), #remove extensions
Clean = gsub("[^0-9]", "", Clean), #remove parentheses, dashes, etc
Clean = substr(Clean, nchar(Clean)-9, nchar(Clean)), #grab the right 10 characters
Clean = gsub("(^\\d{3})(\\d{3})(\\d{4}$)", "(\\1)\\2-\\3", Clean)) #format
phone2
I know there might be a better gsub() command but for the purposes of this question, I want to know if there is a way to pipe these gsub() elements together so that I don't have to keep writing Clean = gsub(...) but also not have to use the method where I embed these inside each other.
It would be fine with me if you answer this question using a simpler example.

Answer 1

Don't fall into the trap of endless pipes. Do the correct thing for readability and efficiency, write a function.
phone %>% mutate(Clean = cleanPhone(Numbers))
# Numbers Clean
# 1 1234567890 [phone]
# 2 555-3456789 [phone]
# 3 222-222-2222 [phone]
# 4 5131831249 [phone]
# 5 123.321.1234 [phone]
# 6 [phone] [phone]
# 7 [phone] [phone]
# 8 555-666-7777 x100 [phone]
Custom function:
cleanPhone <- function(x) {
x2 <- gsub("[^0-9]", "", x)
x3 <- substr(x2, nchar(x2)-9, nchar(x2))
gsub("(^\\d{3})(\\d{3})(\\d{4}$)", "(\\1)\\2-\\3", x3)
}

Answer 2

I guess you need
phone %>%
mutate(Clean = gsub("[A-Za-z].*", "", Numbers) %>%
gsub("[^0-9]", "", .) %>%
substr(., nchar(.)-9, nchar(.)) %>%
gsub("(^\\d{3})(\\d{3})(\\d{4}$)", "(\\1)\\2-\\3", .))
# Numbers Clean
#1 1234567890 [phone]
#2 555-3456789 [phone]
#3 222-222-2222 [phone]
#4 5131831249 [phone]
#5 123.321.1234 [phone]
#6 [phone] [phone]
#7 [phone] [phone]
#8 555-666-7777 x100 [phone]

Answer 3

Even though the question is answered, consider this method that uses magrittr instead of dplyr
require(magrittr)
phone <- data.frame(Numbers = c("1234567890", "555-3456789", "222-222-2222",
"5131831249", "123.321.1234","[phone]",
"[phone]", "555-666-7777 x100"),
stringsAsFactors = F)
phone
cleanchain<- phone$Numbers %>% gsub("[A-Za-z].*", "", .) %>% gsub("[^0-9]", "", .) %>% substr(., nchar(.)-9, nchar(.)) %>% gsub("(^\\d{3})(\\d{3})(\\d{4}$)", "(\\1)\\2-\\3", .)
cleanchain
data.frame(old=phone$Numbers,new=cleanchain, stringsAsFactors = F)