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MS&E 125

Debugging tips and Ed posting norms

Please be sure to follow this hierarchy when debugging your code.

Starting steps:

  • Clear your R environment (click the broom icon in the top right pane), and re-run your code from the top of your script. 
  • Review your code line by line using the Duck method. 
  • Copy and paste your error into Google search, as Stack Overflow very likely has at least one relevant post about your bug. Make sure to exclude any object names that are specific to your code.
  • You should also read all prior Ed posts, as someone may have already asked your question.
  • If you want to learn a new technique, search TECHNIQUE_DESCRIPTION R tidyverse on Google. For example, how to make a bar graph R tidyverse. Feel free to share your findings in a public Ed post!

Ideal follow-up step:

  • If the steps above do not resolve your bug or answer your question, we strongly encourage you to make a public Ed post. Many other students likely have the same question. You are encouraged to paste error messages in Ed posts, and thoroughly describe the code that generated the error. Please use the code editing fonts as they make Ed posts a lot easier to read (see below).

Hard to read:

── Attaching packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse 1.3.0 ── ✓ ggplot2 3.3.2 ✓ purrr 0.3.4 ✓ tibble 3.0.3 ✓ dplyr 1.0.2 ✓ tidyr 1.1.2 ✓ stringr 1.4.0 ✓ readr 1.3.1 ✓ forcats 0.5.0 ── Conflicts ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse_conflicts() ── x dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter() x dplyr::lag() masks stats::lag()

# here’s my plot code

x <- ggplot(df) + geom_point(aes(x = year, y = count))

Easy to read:

── Attaching packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse 1.3.0 ──
✓ ggplot2 3.3.2     ✓ purrr   0.3.4
✓ tibble  3.0.3     ✓ dplyr   1.0.2
✓ tidyr   1.1.2     ✓ stringr 1.4.0
✓ readr   1.3.1     ✓ forcats 0.5.0
── Conflicts ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse_conflicts() ──
x dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter()
x dplyr::lag()    masks stats::lag()

# here's my plot code
x <- ggplot(df) + geom_point(aes(x = year, y = count))

If none of the steps above solve your issue, feel free to make a private Ed post.