Ways to select multiple columns in base R using the native pipe |>?

Question

What are good ways to select multiple columns of a data frame in base R using the native pipe |>? (i.e., without the tidyverse/dplyr to reduce external dependencies).

If we have the data frame

dtf <- data.frame(a = 1:3, b = 4:6, c = 7:9)

then we can select columns b and c with

> dtf[c("b", "c")]
  b c
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9

An elegant way to do this in the tidyverse with the native pipe is

> dtf |> dplyr::select(b, c)
  b c
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9

My best base R attempt with the native pipe was

> dtf |> subset(select = c("b", "c"))
  b c
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9

A more concise (but failed attempt) was

> dtf |> `[`(c("b", "c"))
Error: function '[' not supported in RHS call of a pipe

Are there better ways to do this that I'm missing?

Note: If you wanted only a single column and were okay with dropping into a vector, then getElement could be used:

> dtf |> getElement("b")
[1] 4 5 6

Answer 1

Here is one way:

dtf |> (\(x) `[`(x, c("b", "c")))()
#  b c
#1 4 7
#2 5 8
#3 6 9

You must use the anonymous function \(x) and pass it as an argument to [. Don't forget to end with the parenthesis ().

Answer 2

Just put brackets around:

dtf |> (`[`)(c("b", "c"))
#  b c
#1 4 7
#2 5 8
#3 6 9

or call it over :::

dtf |> base::`[`(c("b", "c"))
#  b c
#1 4 7
#2 5 8
#3 6 9