[R] Removing characters and periods from character strings

[Prof Brian Ripley]

A case for [g]sub:

gsub(".", "", sub("[0-9]*$", "", pick), fixed = TRUE)

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008, John Poulsen wrote:

> Hello R-users,
>
> I have code that gives me the important variables from an analysis.  I need 
> to input these variables into a different analysis.  To do this, I need to 
> modify them slightly... 1) remove all numbers at the end of the variables, 2) 
> remove all periods.
>
> I tried to do it with the awkward code below.  It works to remove all the 
> numbers, but when I try to remove the period everything is lost.
>
> Does anyone have a solution?  And perhaps a more elegant way?
>
> pick=c("(Intercept)", "Clear", "factor(Hab)3", "factor(Hab)4", 
> "factor(Hab)5","factor(Hab)7", "factor(Log)1", "Hunt", "Pop", "s(PrimRd).1", 
> "s(PrimRd).2", "Unlog", "Xcoord", "Ycoord")
>
> vars=as.character(as.vector(strsplit(pick,"1")))
>   vars=unique(as.character(as.vector(strsplit(vars,"2"))))
>   vars=unique(as.character(as.vector(strsplit(vars,"3"))))
>   vars=unique(as.character(as.vector(strsplit(vars,"4"))))
>   vars=unique(as.character(as.vector(strsplit(vars,"5"))))
>   vars=unique(as.character(as.vector(strsplit(vars,"7"))))
>   vars=unique(as.character(as.vector(strsplit(vars,"."))))
>
> Thanks for your help!
> John
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595