Mastering the Pipe Operator (|>): Streamline Your Elixir Code

Elixir’s

pipe operator (|>) lets you chain function calls in a clear, left‑to‑right flow—making data transformations concise and readable.

# We start with a range of numbers 1 through 10
1..10
|> Enum.map(&(&1 * 3))        # Triple each number
|> Enum.filter(&rem(&1, 2) == 0)  # Keep only the even results
|> Enum.take(3)               # Take the first three elements

Output in IEx:

[6, 12, 18]

Why Use |>?

• Readability:
  You read it like a pipeline—“take 1..10, triple them, filter evens, then take three.”

• No Nested Calls:
  Without piping, you’d write:

  Enum.take(
    Enum.filter(
      Enum.map(1..10, &(&1 * 3)),
      &rem(&1, 2) == 0
    ),
    3
  )
  

  which gets hard to follow as you nest more operations.

• Flexibility:
  You can insert or remove steps without re‑parenthesizing everything.

Takeaways

• Use |> to pass the result of the left expression as the first argument to the function on the right.
• Ideal for chaining transformations on collections (using Enum or Stream).
• Makes your code read top‑to‑bottom, improving maintainability and reducing cognitive load.

By embracing the pipe operator, your Elixir code becomes both more elegant and easier to reason about.

Happy piping!