[R] How to replace 'star (*)' with blank space?

[David Winsemius]

On Apr 20, 2011, at 6:00 AM, Ruby Chu wrote:

> Hi There
>
> I'm not very sure how to replace the stars in a character vector
>
> For example:
>
> a character vector (n rows by 1 col)
>
> [1] "-27  -21  -25    -28****  *****  -29"
> [2] "-27  ********     -28****  *****  -29"
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> [n] "-1***********************************"
>
> I wish to replace all the *s with a blank, result as per below
>
> [1] "-27  -21  -25    -28               -29"
> [2] "-27                 -28               -29"
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> [n] "-1                                            "
>
> I have tried to use gsub( )
> like: gsub("*", "", x)

"*" is an operator in regex, so you need to double escape it in the  
pattern argument (but may not need to escape it in the replace argument.

 > gsub("\\*", "", "test8888****8888****9999")
[1] "test888888889999"

 > gsub("\\.", "*", "test8888...8888...9999")
[1] "test8888***8888***9999"

> but doesn't seem to be working...please advise
>
> Thank you
>
> Ruby
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT