Rmarkdown Error "Attempt to Use Zero-Length Variable Name"

rmarkdown error attempt to use zero-length variable name

Putting this as an answer for visibility: this happens if you try to run by selecting all in the Rmd and pressing enter like you would with a normal R script. RStudio tries to run this all as R code, including the markdown parts, leading to the errors you saw.

You can avoid this by running an individual chunk by clicking the green play button or by selecting one of the run options in the dropdown at the top of the Rmd editor.

R: attempt to use zero-length variable name in filter.data.frame

The error is because of column names with NA values. You can either remove them.

library(dplyr)
qb_stats_all <- qb_stats_all %>%  
                  select(-num, -(28:32)) %>% 
                  filter(player != 'Player')

Or rename them to give them any appropriate column name.

names(qb_stats_all)[28:32] <- paste0('col', 1:5)
qb_stats_all <- qb_stats_all %>%  filter(player != 'Player')

Unexplained R failure: Error: attempt to use zero-length variable name

The error message makes it look as though you are trying to evaluate the chunk header as R code. You had

```{r figure_3_3_1, fig.height=jobs_levels}

The first two backticks would be parsed as a zero length variable name, as the error message states.

You can't run R Markdown code as R code, you need to use rmarkdown::render or a related function to run it.

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