Checking whether an item is in a vector or not in a vector is a common task. The notation in R is a little inelegant when expressing the “not in” condition since the negation operator (!) is separated from the comparison operator (%in%):

5 %in% c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)  # TRUE
!5 %in% c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) # FALSE

R is a language where you can easily extend the set of built in operators:

`%!in%` <-
  function(needle, haystack) {
    !(needle %in% haystack)
  }

Now, I can express my intentions reasonably clearly with my new, compact, infix operator %!in%:

5 %in% c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)  # TRUE
5 %!in% c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) # FALSE

Moral: bend your tools to your will, not the other way ’round.