vctrs (development version)

If NA_character_ is specified as a name for vctrs_vctr objects, it is now automatically repaired to "" (#780).
"" is now an allowed name for vctrs_vctr objects (#780).
list_of() is now much faster when many values are provided.
vec_as_location() evaluates arg only in case of error, for performance (#1150, @krlmlr).
levels.vctrs_vctr() now returns NULL instead of failing (#1186, @krlmlr).
vec_assert() produces a more informative error when size is invalid (#1470).
vec_duplicate_detect() is a bit faster when there are many unique values.
vec_proxy_order() is described in vignette("s3-vectors") (#1373, @krlmlr).
New vec_rank() to compute various types of sample ranks.
vec_chop() now materializes ALTREP vectors before chopping, which is more efficient than creating many small ALTREP pieces (#1450).
New list_drop_empty() for removing empty elements from a list (#1395).
list_sizes() now propagates the names of the list onto the result.
vec_order() and vec_sort() now use a custom radix sort algorithm, rather than relying on order(). The implementation is based on data.table’s forder() and their earlier contribution to R’s order(). There are four major changes, outlined below, the first two of which are breaking changes. If you need to retain the old ordering behavior, use vec_order_base().
- Character vectors now order in the C locale by default, which is much faster than ordering in the system's locale. To order in a specific locale, you can provide a character proxy function through chr_proxy_collate, such as stringi::stri_sort_key().
- Optional arguments, such as direction and na_value, must now be specified by name. Specifying by position will result in an error.
- When ordering data frames, you can now control the behavior of direction and na_value on a per column basis.
- There is a new nan_distinct argument for differentiating between NaN and NA in double and complex vectors.
Name repair messages are now signaled by rlang::names_inform_repair(). This means that the messages are now sent to stdout by default rather than to stderr, resulting in prettier messages. Additionally, name repair messages can now be silenced through the global option rlib_name_repair_verbosity, which is useful for testing purposes. See ?names_inform_repair for more information (#1429).
vctrs_vctr methods for na.omit(), na.exclude(), and na.fail() have been added (#1413).
vec_init() is now slightly faster (#1423).
vec_set_names() no longer corrupts vctrs_rcrd types (#1419).
vec_detect_complete() now computes completeness for vctrs_rcrd types in the same way as data frames, which means that if any field is missing, the entire record is considered incomplete (#1386).
The na_value argument of vec_order() and vec_sort() now correctly respect missing values in lists (#1401).
vec_rep() and vec_rep_each() are much faster for times = 0 and times = 1 (@mgirlich, #1392).
vec_equal_na() and vec_fill_missing() now work with integer64 vectors (#1304).
The xtfrm() method for vctrs_vctr objects no longer accidentally breaks ties (#1354).
min(), max() and range() no longer throw an error if na.rm = TRUE is set and all values are NA (@gorcha, #1357). In this case, and where an empty input is given, it will return Inf/-Inf, or NA if Inf can't be cast to the input type.
vec_group_loc(), used for grouping in dplyr, now correctly handles vectors with billions of elements (up to .Machine$integer.max) (#1133).

vctrs 0.3.8

Compatibility with next version of rlang.

vctrs 0.3.7

vec_ptype_abbr() gains arguments to control whether to indicate named vectors with a prefix (prefix_named) and indicate shaped vectors with a suffix (suffix_shape) (#781, @krlmlr).
vec_ptype() is now an optional performance generic. It is not necessary to implement, but if your class has a static prototype, you might consider implementing a custom vec_ptype() method that returns a constant to improve performance in some cases (such as common type imputation).
New vec_detect_complete(), inspired by stats::complete.cases(). For most vectors, this is identical to !vec_equal_na(). For data frames and matrices, this detects rows that only contain non-missing values.
vec_order() can now order complex vectors (#1330).
Removed dependency on digest in favor of rlang::hash().
Fixed an issue where vctrs_rcrd objects were not being proxied correctly when used as a data frame column (#1318).
register_s3() is now licensed with the "unlicense" which makes it very clear that it's fine to copy and paste into your own package (@maxheld83, #1254).

vctrs 0.3.6

Fixed an issue with tibble 3.0.0 where removing column names with names(x) <- NULL is now deprecated (#1298).
Fixed a GCC 11 issue revealed by CRAN checks.

vctrs 0.3.5

New experimental vec_fill_missing() for filling in missing values with the previous or following value. It is similar to tidyr::fill(), but also works with data frames and has an additional max_fill argument to limit the number of sequential missing values to fill.
New vec_unrep() to compress a vector with repeated values. It is very similar to run length encoding, and works nicely alongside vec_rep_each() as a way to invert the compression.
vec_cbind() with only empty data frames now preserves the common size of the inputs in the result (#1281).
vec_c() now correctly returns a named result with named empty inputs (#1263).
vctrs has been relicensed as MIT (#1259).
Functions that make comparisons within a single vector, such as vec_unique(), or between two vectors, such as vec_match(), now convert all character input to UTF-8 before making comparisons (#1246).
New vec_identify_runs() which returns a vector of identifiers for the elements of x that indicate which run of repeated values they fall in (#1081).
Fixed an encoding translation bug with lists containing data frames which have columns where vec_size() is different from the low level Rf_length() (#1233).

vctrs 0.3.4

Fixed a GCC sanitiser error revealed by CRAN checks.

vctrs 0.3.3

The table class is now implemented as a wrapper type that delegates its coercion methods. It used to be restricted to integer tables (#1190).
Named one-dimensional arrays now behave consistently with simple vectors in vec_names() and vec_rbind().
new_rcrd() now uses df_list() to validate the fields. This makes it more flexible as the fields can now be of any type supported by vctrs, including data frames.
Thanks to the previous change the [[ method of records now preserves list fields (#1205).
vec_data() now preserves data frames. This is consistent with the notion that data frames are a primitive vector type in vctrs. This shouldn't affect code that uses [[ and length() to manipulate the data. On the other hand, the vctrs primitives like vec_slice() will now operate rowwise when vec_data() returns a data frame.
outer is now passed unrecycled to name specifications. Instead, the return value is recycled (#1099).

Name specifications can now return NULL. The names vector will only be allocated if the spec function returns non-NULL during the concatenation. This makes it possible to ignore outer names without having to create an empty names vector when there are no inner names:

zap_outer_spec <- function(outer, inner) if (is_character(inner)) inner

# `NULL` names rather than a vector of ""
names(vec_c(a = 1:2, .name_spec = zap_outer_spec))
#> NULL

# Names are allocated when inner names exist
names(vec_c(a = 1:2, c(b = 3L), .name_spec = zap_outer_spec))
#> [1] ""  ""  "b"

Fixed several performance issues in vec_c() and vec_unchop() with named vectors.
The restriction that S3 lists must have a list-based proxy to be considered lists by vec_is_list() has been removed (#1208).
New performant data_frame() constructor for creating data frames in a way that follows tidyverse semantics. Among other things, inputs are recycled using tidyverse recycling rules, strings are never converted to factors, list-columns are easier to create, and unnamed data frame input is automatically spliced.
New df_list() for safely and consistently constructing the data structure underlying a data frame, a named list of equal-length vectors. It is useful in combination with new_data_frame() for creating user-friendly constructors for data frame subclasses that use the tidyverse rules for recycling and determining types.
Fixed performance issue with vec_order() on classed vectors which affected dplyr::group_by() (tidyverse/dplyr#5423).
vec_set_names() no longer alters the input in-place (#1194).
New vec_proxy_order() that provides an ordering proxy for use in vec_order() and vec_sort(). The default method falls through to vec_proxy_compare(). Lists are special cased, and return an integer vector proxy that orders by first appearance.
List columns in data frames are no longer comparable through vec_compare().
The experimental relax argument has been removed from vec_proxy_compare().

vctrs 0.3.2

Fixed a performance issue in bind_rows() with S3 columns (#1122, #1124, #1151, tidyverse/dplyr#5327).
vec_slice() now checks sizes of data frame columns in case the data structure is corrupt (#552).
The native routines in vctrs now dispatch and evaluate in the vctrs namespace. This improves the continuity of evaluation in backtraces.
new_data_frame() is now twice as fast when class is supplied.
New vec_names2(), vec_names() and vec_set_names() (#1173).

vctrs 0.3.1

vec_slice() no longer restores attributes of foreign objects for which a [ method exist. This fixes an issue with ts objects which were previously incorrectly restored.
The as.list() method for vctrs_rcrd objects has been removed in favor of directly using the method for vctrs_vctr, which calls vec_chop().
vec_c() and vec_rbind() now fall back to base::c() if the inputs have a common class hierarchy for which a c() method is implemented but no self-to-self vec_ptype2() method is implemented.
vec_rbind() now internally calls vec_proxy() and vec_restore() on the data frame common type that is used to create the output (#1109).
vec_as_location2("0") now works correctly (#1131).
?reference-faq-compatibility is a new reference guide on vctrs primitives. It includes an overview of the fallbacks to base R generics implemented in vctrs for compatibility with existing classes.
The documentation of vctrs functions now includes a Dependencies section to reference which other vctrs operations are called from that function. By following the dependencies links recursively, you will find the vctrs primitives on which an operation relies.

CRAN results

Fixed type declaration mismatches revealed by LTO build.
Fixed r-devel issue with new c.factor() method.

vctrs 0.3.0

This version features an overhaul of the coercion system to make it more consistent and easier to implement. See the Breaking changes and Type system sections for details.

There are three new documentation topics if you'd like to learn how to implement coercion methods to make your class compatible with tidyverse packages like dplyr:

https://vctrs.r-lib.org/reference/theory-faq-coercion.html for an overview of the coercion mechanism in vctrs.
https://vctrs.r-lib.org/reference/howto-faq-coercion.html for a practical guide about implementing methods for vectors.
https://vctrs.r-lib.org/reference/howto-faq-coercion-data-frame.html for a practical guide about implementing methods for data frames.

Reverse dependencies troubleshooting

The following errors are caused by breaking changes.

"Can't convert <character> to <list>."

vec_cast() no longer converts to list. Use vec_chop() or as.list() instead.
"Can't convert <integer> to <character>."

vec_cast() no longer converts to character. Use as.character()to deparse objects.
"names for target but not for current"

Names of list-columns are now preserved by vec_rbind(). Adjust tests accordingly.

Breaking changes

Double-dispatch methods for vec_ptype2() and vec_cast() are no longer inherited (#710). Class implementers must implement one set of methods for each compatible class.

For example, a tibble subclass no longer inherits from the vec_ptype2() methods between tbl_df and data.frame. This means that you explicitly need to implement vec_ptype2() methods with tbl_df and data.frame.

This change requires a bit more work from class maintainers but is safer because the coercion hierarchies are generally different from class hierarchies. See the S3 dispatch section of ?vec_ptype2 for more information.
vec_cast() is now restricted to the same conversions as vec_ptype2() methods (#606, #741). This change is motivated by safety and performance:
- It is generally sloppy to generically convert arbitrary inputs to one type. Restricted coercions are more predictable and allow your code to fail earlier when there is a type issue.
- When unrestricted conversions are useful, this is generally towards a known type. For example, glue::glue() needs to convert arbitrary inputs to the known character type. In this case, using double dispatch instead of a single dispatch generic like as.character() is wasteful.
- To implement the useful semantics of coercible casts (already used in vec_assign()), two double dispatch were needed. Now it can be done with one double dispatch by calling vec_cast() directly.
stop_incompatible_cast() now throws an error of class vctrs_error_incompatible_type rather than vctrs_error_incompatible_cast. This means that vec_cast() also throws errors of this class, which better aligns it with vec_ptype2() now that they are restricted to the same conversions.
The y argument of stop_incompatible_cast() has been renamed to to to better match to_arg.

Type system

Double-dispatch methods for vec_ptype2() and vec_cast() are now easier to implement. They no longer need any the boiler plate. Implementing a method for classes foo and bar is now as simple as:
```
#' @export
vec_ptype2.foo.bar <- function(x, y, ...) new_foo()
```
vctrs also takes care of implementing the default and unspecified methods. If you have implemented these methods, they are no longer called and can now be removed.

One consequence of the new dispatch mechanism is that NextMethod() is now completely unsupported. This is for the best as it never worked correctly in a double-dispatch setting. Parent methods must now be called manually.
vec_ptype2() methods now get zero-size prototypes as inputs. This guarantees that methods do not peek at the data to determine the richer type.
vec_is_list() no longer allows S3 lists that implement a vec_proxy() method to automatically be considered lists. A S3 list must explicitly inherit from "list" in the base class to be considered a list.
vec_restore() no longer restores row names if the target is not a data frame. This fixes an issue where POSIXlt objects would carry a row.names attribute after a proxy/restore roundtrip.
vec_cast() to and from data frames preserves the row names of inputs.
The internal function vec_names() now returns row names if the input is a data frame. Similarly, vec_set_names() sets row names on data frames. This is part of a general effort at making row names the vector names of data frames in vctrs.

If necessary, the row names are repaired verbosely but without error to make them unique. This should be a mostly harmless change for users, but it could break unit tests in packages if they make assumptions about the row names.

Compatibility and fallbacks

With the double dispatch changes, the coercion methods are no longer inherited from parent classes. This is because the coercion hierarchy is in principle different from the S3 hierarchy. A consequence of this change is that subclasses that don't implement coercion methods are now in principle incompatible.

This is particularly problematic with subclasses of data frames for which throwing incompatible errors would be too incovenient for users. To work around this, we have implemented a fallback to the relevant base data frame class (either data.frame or tbl_df) in coercion methods (#981). This fallback is silent unless you set the vctrs:::warn_on_fallback option to TRUE.

In the future we may extend this fallback principle to other base types when they are explicitly included in the class vector (such as "list").
Improved support for foreign classes in the combining operations vec_c(), vec_rbind(), and vec_unchop(). A foreign class is a class that doesn't implement vec_ptype2(). When all the objects to combine have the same foreign class, one of these fallbacks is invoked:
- If the class implements a base::c() method, the method is used for the combination. (FIXME: vec_rbind() currently doesn't use this fallback.)
- Otherwise if the objects have identical attributes and the same base type, we consider them to be compatible. The vectors are concatenated and the attributes are restored (#776).
These fallbacks do not make your class completely compatible with vctrs-powered packages, but they should help in many simple cases.
vec_c() and vec_unchop() now fall back to base::c() for S4 objects if the object doesn't implement vec_ptype2() but sets an S4 c() method (#919).

Vector operations

vec_rbind() and vec_c() with data frame inputs now consistently preserve the names of list-columns, df-columns, and matrix-columns (#689). This can cause some false positives in unit tests, if they are sensitive to internal names (#1007).
vec_rbind() now repairs row names silently to avoid confusing messages when the row names are not informative and were not created on purpose.
vec_rbind() gains option to treat input names as row names. This is disabled by default (#966).
New vec_rep() and vec_rep_each() for repeating an entire vector and elements of a vector, respectively. These two functions provide a clearer interface for the functionality of vec_repeat(), which is now deprecated.
vec_cbind() now calls vec_restore() on inputs emptied of their columns before computing the common type. This has consequences for data frame classes with special columns that devolve into simpler classes when the columns are subsetted out. These classes are now always simplified by vec_cbind().

For instance, column-binding a grouped data frame with a data frame now produces a tibble (the simplified class of a grouped data frame).
vec_match() and vec_in() gain parameters for argument tags (#944).
The internal version of vec_assign() now has support for assigning names and inner names. For data frames, the names are assigned recursively.
vec_assign() gains x_arg and value_arg parameters (#918).
vec_group_loc(), which powers dplyr::group_by(), now has more efficient vector access (#911).
vec_ptype() gained an x_arg argument.
New list_sizes() for computing the size of every element in a list. list_sizes() is to vec_size() as lengths() is to length(), except that it only supports lists. Atomic vectors and data frames result in an error.
new_data_frame() infers size from row names when n = NULL (#894).
vec_c() now accepts rlang::zap() as .name_spec input. The returned vector is then always unnamed, and the names do not cause errors when they can't be combined. They are still used to create more informative messages when the inputs have incompatible types (#232).

Classes

vctrs now supports the data.table class. The common type of a data frame and a data table is a data table.
new_vctr() now always appends a base "list" class to list .data to be compatible with changes to vec_is_list(). This affects new_list_of(), which now returns an object with a base class of "list".
dplyr methods are now implemented for vec_restore(), vec_ptype2(), and vec_cast(). The user-visible consequence (and breaking change) is that row-binding a grouped data frame and a data frame or tibble now returns a grouped data frame. It would previously return a tibble.
The is.na<-() method for vctrs_vctr now supports numeric and character subscripts to indicate where to insert missing values (#947).
Improved support for vector-like S4 objects (#550, #551).
The base classes AsIs and table have vctrs methods (#904, #906).
POSIXlt and POSIXct vectors are handled more consistently (#901).
Ordered factors that do not have identical levels are now incompatible. They are now incompatible with all factors.

Indexing and names

vec_as_subscript() now fails when the subscript is a matrix or an array, consistently with vec_as_location().
Improved error messages in vec_as_location() when subscript is a matrix or array (#936).
vec_as_location2() properly picks up subscript_arg (tidyverse/tibble#735).
vec_as_names() now has more informative error messages when names are not unique (#882).
vec_as_names() gains a repair_arg argument that when set will cause repair = "check_unique" to generate an informative hint (#692).

Conditions

stop_incompatible_type() now has an action argument for customizing whether the coercion error came from vec_ptype2() or vec_cast(). stop_incompatible_cast() is now a thin wrapper around stop_incompatible_type(action = "convert").
stop_ functions now take details after the dots. This argument can no longer be passed by position.
Supplying both details and message to the stop_ functions is now an internal error.
x_arg, y_arg, and to_arg are now compulsory arguments in stop_ functions like stop_incompatible_type().
Lossy cast errors are now considered internal. Please don't test for the class or explicitly handle them.
New argument loss_type for the experimental function maybe_lossy_cast(). It can take the values "precision" or "generality" to indicate in the error message which kind of loss is the error about (double to integer loses precision, character to factor loses generality).
Coercion and recycling errors are now more consistent.

CRAN results

Fixed clang-UBSAN error "nan is outside the range of representable values of type 'int'" (#902).
Fixed compilation of stability vignette following the date conversion changes on R-devel.

vctrs 0.2.4

Factors and dates methods are now implemented in C for efficiency.
new_data_frame() now correctly updates attributes and supports merging of the "names" and "row.names" arguments (#883).
vec_match() gains an na_equal argument (#718).
vec_chop()'s indices argument has been restricted to positive integer vectors. Character and logical subscripts haven't proven useful, and this aligns vec_chop() with vec_unchop(), for which only positive integer vectors make sense.
New vec_unchop() for combining a list of vectors into a single vector. It is similar to vec_c(), but gives greater control over how the elements are placed in the output through the use of a secondary indices argument.
Breaking change: When .id is supplied, vec_rbind() now creates the identifier column at the start of the data frame rather than at the end.
numeric_version and package_version lists are now treated as vectors (#723).
vec_slice() now properly handles symbols and S3 subscripts.
vec_as_location() and vec_as_subscript() are now fully implemented in C for efficiency.
num_as_location() gains a new argument, zero, for controlling whether to "remove", "ignore", or "error" on zero values (#852).

vctrs 0.2.3

The main feature of this release is considerable performance improvements with factors and dates.
vec_c() now falls back to base::c() if the vector doesn't implement vec_ptype2() but implements c(). This should improve the compatibility of vctrs-based functions with foreign classes (#801).
new_data_frame() is now faster.
New vec_is_list() for detecting if a vector is a list in the vctrs sense. For instance, objects of class lm are not lists. In general, classes need to explicitly inherit from "list" to be considered as lists by vctrs.

Unspecified vectors of NA can now be assigned into a list (#819).

x <- list(1, 2)
vec_slice(x, 1) <- NA
x
#> [[1]]
#> NULL
#>
#> [[2]]
#> 2

vec_ptype() now errors on scalar inputs (#807).
vec_ptype_finalise() is now recursive over all data frame types, ensuring that unspecified columns are correctly finalised to logical (#800).
vec_ptype() now correctly handles unspecified columns in data frames, and will always return an unspecified column type (#800).
vec_slice() and vec_chop() now work correctly with bit64::integer64() objects when an NA subscript is supplied. By extension, this means that vec_init() now works with these objects as well (#813).
vec_rbind() now binds row names. When named inputs are supplied and names_to is NULL, the names define row names. If names_to is supplied, they are assigned in the column name as before.
vec_cbind() now uses the row names of the first named input.
The c() method for vctrs_vctr now throws an error when recursive or use.names is supplied (#791).

vctrs 0.2.2

New vec_as_subscript() function to cast inputs to the base type of a subscript (logical, numeric, or character). vec_as_index() has been renamed to vec_as_location(). Use num_as_location() if you need more options to control how numeric subscripts are converted to a vector of locations.
New vec_as_subscript2(), vec_as_location2(), and num_as_location2() variants for validating scalar subscripts and locations (e.g. for indexing with [[).
vec_as_location() now preserves names of its inputs if possible.
vec_ptype2() methods for base classes now prevent inheritance. This makes sense because the subtyping graph created by vec_ptype2() methods is generally not the same as the inheritance relationships defined by S3 classes. For instance, subclasses are often a richer type than their superclasses, and should often be declared as supertypes (e.g. vec_ptype2() should return the subclass).

We introduced this breaking change in a patch release because new_vctr() now adds the base type to the class vector by default, which caused vec_ptype2() to dispatch erroneously to the methods for base types. We'll finish switching to this approach in vctrs 0.3.0 for the rest of the base S3 classes (dates, data frames, ...).
vec_equal_na() now works with complex vectors.
vctrs_vctr class gains an as.POSIXlt() method (#717).
vec_is() now ignores names and row names (#707).
vec_slice() now support Altvec vectors (@jimhester, #696).
vec_proxy_equal() is now applied recursively across the columns of data frames (#641).
vec_split() no longer returns the val column as a list_of. It is now returned as a bare list (#660).
Complex numbers are now coercible with integer and double (#564).
zeallot has been moved from Imports to Suggests, meaning that %<-% is no longer re-exported from vctrs.
vec_equal() no longer propagates missing values when comparing list elements. This means that vec_equal(list(NULL), list(NULL)) will continue to return NA because NULL is the missing element for a list, but now vec_equal(list(NA), list(NA)) returns TRUE because the NA values are compared directly without checking for missingness.
Lists of expressions are now supported in vec_equal() and functions that compare elements, such as vec_unique() and vec_match(). This ensures that they work with the result of modeling functions like glm() and mgcv::gam() which store "family" objects containing expressions (#643).
new_vctr() gains an experimental inherit_base_type argument which determines whether or not the class of the underlying type will be included in the class.
list_of() now inherits explicitly from "list" (#593).
vec_ptype() has relaxed default behaviour for base types; now if two vectors both inherit from (e.g.) "character", the common type is also "character" (#497).
vec_equal() now correctly treats NULL as the missing value element for lists (#653).
vec_cast() now casts data frames to lists rowwise, i.e. to a list of data frames of size 1. This preserves the invariant of vec_size(vec_cast(x, to)) == vec_size(x) (#639).
Positive and negative 0 are now considered equivalent by all functions that check for equality or uniqueness (#637).
New experimental functions vec_group_rle() for returning run length encoded groups; vec_group_id() for constructing group identifiers from a vector; vec_group_loc() for computing the locations of unique groups in a vector (#514).
New vec_chop() for repeatedly slicing a vector. It efficiently captures the pattern of map(indices, vec_slice, x = x).
Support for multiple character encodings has been added to functions that compare elements within a single vector, such as vec_unique(), and across multiple vectors, such as vec_match(). When multiple encodings are encountered, a translation to UTF-8 is performed before any comparisons are made (#600, #553).
Equality and ordering methods are now implemented for raw and complex vectors (@romainfrancois).

vctrs 0.2.1

Maintenance release for CRAN checks.

vctrs 0.2.0

With the 0.2.0 release, many vctrs functions have been rewritten with native C code to improve performance. Functions like vec_c() and vec_rbind() should now be fast enough to be used in packages. This is an ongoing effort, for instance the handling of factors and dates has not been rewritten yet. These classes still slow down vctrs primitives.

The API in 0.2.0 has been updated, please see a list of breaking changes below. vctrs has now graduated from experimental to a maturing package. Please note that API changes are still planned for future releases, for instance vec_ptype2() and vec_cast() might need to return a sentinel instead of failing with an error when there is no common type or possible cast.

Breaking changes

Lossy casts now throw errors of type vctrs_error_cast_lossy. Previously these were warnings. You can suppress these errors selectively with allow_lossy_cast() to get the partial cast results. To implement your own lossy cast operation, call the new exported function maybe_lossy_cast().

vec_c() now fails when an input is supplied with a name but has internal names or is length > 1:

vec_c(foo = c(a = 1))
#> Error: Can't merge the outer name `foo` with a named vector.
#> Please supply a `.name_spec` specification.

vec_c(foo = 1:3)
#> Error: Can't merge the outer name `foo` with a vector of length > 1.
#> Please supply a `.name_spec` specification.

You can supply a name specification that describes how to combine the external name of the input with its internal names or positions:

# Name spec as glue string:
vec_c(foo = c(a = 1), .name_spec = "{outer}_{inner}")

# Name spec as a function:
vec_c(foo = c(a = 1), .name_spec = function(outer, inner) paste(outer, inner, sep = "_"))
vec_c(foo = c(a = 1), .name_spec = ~ paste(.x, .y, sep = "_"))

vec_empty() has been renamed to vec_is_empty().
vec_dim() and vec_dims() are no longer exported.
vec_na() has been renamed to vec_init(), as the primary use case is to initialize an output container.
vec_slice<- is now type stable (#140). It always returns the same type as the LHS. If needed, the RHS is cast to the correct type, but only if both inputs are coercible. See examples in ?vec_slice.
We have renamed the type particle to ptype:
- vec_type() => vec_ptype()
- vec_type2() => vec_ptype2()
- vec_type_common() => vec_ptype_common()
Consequently, vec_ptype() was renamed to vec_ptype_show().

New features

New vec_proxy() generic. This is the main customisation point in vctrs along with vec_restore(). You should only implement it when your type is designed around a non-vector class (atomic vectors, bare lists, data frames). In this case, vec_proxy() should return such a vector class. The vctrs operations will be applied on the proxy and vec_restore() is called to restore the original representation of your type.

The most common case where you need to implement vec_proxy() is for S3 lists. In vctrs, S3 lists are treated as scalars by default. This way we don't treat objects like model fits as vectors. To prevent vctrs from treating your S3 list as a scalar, unclass it from the vec_proxy() method. For instance here is the definition for list_of:
```
#' @export
vec_proxy.vctrs_list_of <- function(x) {
  unclass(x)
}
```
If you inherit from vctrs_vctr or vctrs_rcrd you don't need to implement vec_proxy().
vec_c(), vec_rbind(), and vec_cbind() gain a .name_repair argument (#227, #229).

vec_c(), vec_rbind(), vec_cbind(), and all functions relying on vec_ptype_common() now have more informative error messages when some of the inputs have nested data frames that are not convergent:

df1 <- tibble(foo = tibble(bar = tibble(x = 1:3, y = letters[1:3])))
df2 <- tibble(foo = tibble(bar = tibble(x = 1:3, y = 4:6)))

vec_rbind(df1, df2)
#> Error: No common type for `..1$foo$bar$y` <character> and `..2$foo$bar$y` <integer>.

vec_cbind() now turns named data frames to packed columns.

data <- tibble::tibble(x = 1:3, y = letters[1:3])
data <- vec_cbind(data, packed = data)
data
# A tibble: 3 x 3
      x y     packed$x $y
  <int> <chr>    <int> <chr>
1     1 a            1 a
2     2 b            2 b
3     3 c            3 c

Packed data frames are nested in a single column. This makes it possible to access it through a single name:

data$packed
# A tibble: 3 x 2
      x y
  <int> <chr>
1     1 a
2     2 b
3     3 c

We are planning to use this syntax more widely in the tidyverse.

New vec_is() function to check whether a vector conforms to a prototype and/or a size. Unlike vec_assert(), it doesn't throw errors but returns TRUE or FALSE (#79).

Called without a specific type or size, vec_assert() tests whether an object is a data vector or a scalar. S3 lists are treated as scalars by default. Implement a vec_is_vector() for your class to override this property (or derive from vctrs_vctr).
New vec_order() and vec_sort() for ordering and sorting generalised vectors.
New .names_to parameter for vec_rbind(). If supplied, this should be the name of a column where the names of the inputs are copied. This is similar to the .id parameter of dplyr::bind_rows().
New vec_seq_along() and vec_init_along() create useful sequences (#189).
vec_slice() now preserves character row names, if present.
New vec_split(x, by) is a generalisation of split() that can divide a vector into groups formed by the unique values of another vector. Returns a two-column data frame containing unique values of by aligned with matching x values (#196).

Other features and bug fixes

Using classed errors of class "vctrs_error_assert" for failed assertions, and of class "vctrs_error_incompatible" (with subclasses _type, _cast and _op) for errors on incompatible types (#184).
Character indexing is now only supported for named objects, an error is raised for unnamed objects (#171).
Predicate generics now consistently return logical vectors when passed a vctrs_vctr class. They used to restore the output to their input type (#251).
list_of() now has an as.character() method. It uses vec_ptype_abbr() to collapse complex objects into their type representation (tidyverse/tidyr#654).
New stop_incompatible_size() to signal a failure due to mismatched sizes.
New validate_list_of() (#193).
vec_arith() is consistent with base R when combining difftime and date, with a warning if casts are lossy (#192).
vec_c() and vec_rbind() now handle data.frame columns properly (@yutannihilation, #182).
vec_cast(x, data.frame()) preserves the number of rows in x.
vec_equal() now handles missing values symmetrically (#204).
vec_equal_na() now returns TRUE for data frames and records when every component is missing, not when any component is missing (#201).
vec_init() checks input is a vector.
vec_proxy_compare() gains an experimental relax argument, which allows data frames to be orderable even if all their columns are not (#210).
vec_size() now works with positive short row names. This fixes issues with data frames created with jsonlite (#220).
vec_slice<- now has a vec_assign() alias. Use vec_assign() when you don't want to modify the original input.
vec_slice() now calls vec_restore() automatically. Unlike the default [ method from base R, attributes are preserved by default.
vec_slice() can correct slice 0-row data frames (#179).
New vec_repeat() for repeating each element of a vector the same number of times.
vec_type2(x, data.frame()) ensures that the returned object has names that are a length-0 character vector.

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