Native pipe placeholder in nested function call

An idiomatic way to drop NAs in a dplyr pipeline is to use complete.cases() in a filter() call:

iris %>% filter(complete.cases(.))

But the _ placeholder for the native R pipe doesn't seem to like it:

iris |> filter(complete.cases(`...` = _))

# Error in filter(iris, complete.cases(... = "_")) : 
    # invalid use of pipe placeholder (<input>:1:0)

How do I pass the _ placeholder to dots ...?

The _ placeholder can be used at most once on the right hand side of a |> pipe and if used then must be used as a named argument to the right hand side call expression. It cannot be used as an unnamed argument and cannot be used within an inner call nested within the main right hand side call. See help("|>") .

Here are some alternatives using the built-in BOD data frame. #3 was already shown in another answer but I have included it for completeness. I personally find the parenthesis laden anonymous function syntax needed within pipes to be hard to read and normally would use one of the others.

library(dplyr) # filter
BOD[1, 2] <- NA

# 1 - list/with
BOD |> 
  list(x = _) |>
  with(filter(x, complete.cases(x)))

# 2 - named function
noNA <- function(x) filter(x, complete.cases(x))
BOD |> noNA()

# 3 - anonymous function
BOD |> (\(x) filter(x, complete.cases(x)))()

# 4 - with dplyr use cur_group; pick(everything()) also works
BOD |>
  filter(complete.cases(cur_group()))

# 5 - use a different function
library(tidyr)
BOD |>
  drop_na()

We could alternately just avoid using |>

# 6 - uses %>% instead
BOD %>%
  filter(complete.cases(.))

# 7 - avoid piping
filter(BOD, complete.cases(BOD))

# 8 - same as 7 but BOD only referenced once
x <- BOD
filter(x, complete.cases(x))

# 9 - Bizarro pipe (not really a pipe)
BOD ->.
   filter(., complete.cases(.))