Maybe now you're wondering what the advantage is of using filter() and select() over standard R functions and operators? After all, combining the two can result in complicated statements.

Well, there's still more to learn, starting with the real power of tidyverse: the pipe operator. The pipe operator looks like this: %>%. It takes data on the left-hand side and uses it as an argument to the function on the right-hand side of the operator.

Let's say we wanted to select the country_name column from countries. We could write:

select(countries, country_name)

Or we could write:

countries %>%
  select(country_name)

The pipe operator will take its left hand-side (countries) and pass it as the first argument to its right hand-side function (select()). Either syntax will give us the same result. Why this is useful will soon be seen.