[R] puzzle using gsub (and encodings maybe)

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 10/14/2009 1:41 PM, Adrian Dragulescu wrote:
> 
>> charToRaw(x)
>   [1] 4e 45 57 20 59 4f 52 4b 20 ad 4e 45 57 20 45 4e 47 4c 41 4e 44
>> charToRaw(y)
>   [1] 4e 45 57 20 59 4f 52 4b 20 2d 4e 45 57 20 45 4e 47 4c 41 4e 44
>>
> 
> So they are different.
> 
> Adrian
> 
> I use R 2.8.1 on WinXP

But that's ancient.  Please try again with the beta of 2.10.0, and let 
us know if you still see a problem.

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> 
> On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> 
>> On 10/14/2009 1:30 PM, Adrian Dragulescu wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> Below is some output that shows my issue.
>>> 
>>> I have a variable x that I read from a file (more on this below)
>>> 
>>>> x
>>> [1] "NEW YORK NEW ENGLAND"
>>>> gsub(" -", "-", x)            # this does not work!
>>> [1] "NEW YORK NEW ENGLAND"
>>
>> It looks as though it worked, presumably because something got lost in your 
>> email.
>>
>> Could you post charToRaw(x) so we can see what's in x?
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>>>> Encoding(x)                   # is x in a special encoding? no
>>> [1] "unknown"
>>>> y = "NEW YORK -NEW ENGLAND"   # I type in variable y
>>>> gsub(" -", "-", y)            # and gsub works as expected
>>> [1] "NEW YORK-NEW ENGLAND"
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm sure the problem has to do with the way I read the variable x.  But 
>>> even if I change the encoding for x to ASCII, I still cannot do the sub.
>>> I get x by reading a pdf file with pdftotext so you will not be able to 
>>> replicate my issue.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for any suggestions,
>>> Adrian
>>> 
>>> ______________________________________________
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>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>>