[R] gsub: replacing slashes in a string

[Joe Ceradini]

Thanks Jim!

Joe

On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 11:06 AM, jim holtman <jholtman at gmail.com> wrote:

> try this:
>
> > gsub("\\\\", "/", test)
> [1] "8/24/2016" "8/24/2016" "6/16/2016" "6/16/2016"
>
>
>
>
> Jim Holtman
> Data Munger Guru
>
> What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
> Tell me what you want to do, not how you want to do it.
>
> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 12:25 PM, Joe Ceradini <joeceradini at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> There are many R help posts out there dealing with slashes in gsub. I
>> understand slashes are "escape characters" and thus need to be treated
>> differently, and display differently in R. However, I'm still stuck on
>> find-replace problem, and would appreciate any tips. Thanks!
>>
>> GOAL: replace all "\\" with "/", so when export file to csv all slashes
>> are
>> the same.
>>
>> (test <- c("8/24/2016", "8/24/2016", "6/16/2016", "6\\16\\2016"))
>>
>> Lengths are all the same, I think (?) because of how R displays/deals with
>> slashes. However, when I export this to a csv, e.g., there are still
>> double
>> slashes, which is a problem for me.
>> nchar(test)
>>
>> Change direction of slashes - works.
>> (test2 <- gsub("\\", "//", test, fixed = TRUE))
>>
>> Now lengths are now not the same....
>> nchar(test2)
>>
>> Change from double to single - does not work. Is this because it actually
>> is a single slash but R is just displaying it as double? Regardless, when
>> I
>> export from R the double slashes do appear.
>> gsub("////", "//", test2, fixed = TRUE)
>> gsub("////", "//", test2)
>> gsub("////////", "////", test2, fixed = TRUE)
>> gsub("////////", "////", test2)
>>
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>>
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>>
>
>


-- 
Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Zoology and Physiology Dept.
University of Wyoming
JoeCeradini at gmail.com / 914.707.8506
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