[R] element wise pattern recognition and string substitution

[Bert Gunter]

Well, he did provide an example, and...


> z <- c('TX.WT.CUT.mean','mg.tx.cv')

> sub("^.+?\\.(.+)\\.[^.]+$","\\1",z)
[1] "WT.CUT" "tx"


## seems to do what was requested.

Jeff would have to amplify on his initial statement however: do you
mean that separate patterns can always be combined via "|" ?  Or
something deeper?

Cheers,
Bert
Bert Gunter

"The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
and sticking things into it."
-- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )


On Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 9:30 PM, Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> Your opening assertion is false.
>
> Provide a reproducible example and someone will demonstrate.
> --
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> On September 4, 2016 9:06:59 PM PDT, Jun Shen <jun.shen.ut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>Dear list,
>>
>>I have a vector of strings that cannot be described by one pattern. So
>>let's say I construct a vector of patterns in the same length as the
>>vector
>>of strings, can I do the element wise pattern recognition and string
>>substitution.
>>
>>For example,
>>
>>pattern1 <- "([^.]*)\\.([^.]*\\.[^.]*)\\.(.*)"
>>pattern2 <- "([^.]*)\\.([^.]*)\\.(.*)"
>>
>>patterns <- c(pattern1,pattern2)
>>strings <- c('TX.WT.CUT.mean','mg.tx.cv')
>>
>>Say I want to extract "WT.CUT" from the first string and "tx" from the
>>second string. If I do
>>
>>sub(patterns, '\\2', strings), only the first pattern will be used.
>>
>>looping the patterns doesn't work the way I want. Appreciate any
>>comments.
>>Thanks.
>>
>>Jun
>>
>>       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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>
> ______________________________________________
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.