View() and dplyr::glimpse() of data frame with plots stored in list column generate error since ggplot2 4.0.0

[martingmayer]

First, thanks for all the incredible work behind {ggplot2} and the entire tidyverse. Deeply appreciated.

View() error in RStudio (but not VS Code or Positron)

I noticed that since {ggplot2} 4.0.0, attempting to View() data frames that have ggplots stored in a list column generate an error in RStudio. I mention RStudio specifically because VS Code and Positron seem unaffected from my testing.

Basic reprex:

dat <- data.frame(
  outcome = c("total_cvd", "ascvd", "heart_failure", "chd", "stroke"),
  risk = c(0.346, 0.218, 0.260, 0.168, 0.092)
)

plot <- dat |> 
  ggplot2::ggplot(ggplot2::aes(x = outcome, y = risk)) +
  ggplot2::geom_col(fill = "steelblue") +
  ggplot2::geom_text(ggplot2::aes(label = scales::percent(risk)), vjust = -0.5) +
  ggplot2::labs(
    title = "Risk of Cardiovascular Outcome",
    x = "Outcome",
    y = "Risk"
  )

dat_wide <- dat |> 
  tidyr::pivot_wider(
    names_from = outcome,
    values_from = risk
  )

dat_wide_with_plot <- dat_wide |> 
  dplyr::mutate(plot = list(plot)) 

View(dat_wide_with_plot)

This generates the following error in RStudio:

VS Code and Positron, however, handle this just fine.

Here are a couple of additional, even more basic reprexes:

dat <- data.frame(
  outcome = c("total_cvd", "ascvd", "heart_failure", "chd", "stroke"),
  risk = c(0.346, 0.218, 0.260, 0.168, 0.092)
)

plot <- dat |> 
  ggplot2::ggplot(ggplot2::aes(x = outcome, y = risk)) +
  ggplot2::geom_col(fill = "steelblue")

dat_wide_with_plot <- dplyr::mutate(
  dat |> tidyr::pivot_wider(names_from = outcome, values_from = risk),
  plot = list(plot)
)

View(dat_wide_with_plot)

dat_with_plot <- tibble::tibble(
  thing = "foo",
  stuff = "bar",
  plot = list(ggplot2::ggplot())
)

View(dat_with_plot)

Again, these examples View() fine in VS Code and Positron, but yield the same kind of error in RStudio. Rolling {ggplot2} back to 3.5.2 eliminates the error in RStudio.

dplyr::glimpse() error in RStudio, Positron, and VS Code

In addition, intriguingly, dplyr::glimpse()ing any of the reprexes presented to demonstrate the View() error in RStudio generates the same kind of error across RStudio, Positron, and VS Code with {ggplot2} 4.0.0.

[teunbrand]

Thanks for the report!

Yes, formatting S7 objects in data frames is broken. In lists, the base formatting method keeps using the default method, even for classed objects. This is fixed in R devel, but there is nothing we can presently do to prevent this.