CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexrgsub
Edu
Edu

Reputation: 903

R replacing with gsub using a pattern with a length greater than 1

I have a data.frame example with a variable (care_group) as follows: 

> example
      care_group
    1 1st Choice Care Homes 8.8
    2 2Care
    3 229 Mitcham Lane Ltd
    4 3 L Care Ltd
    5 3AB Care Ltd
    6 9Grace Road Ltd
    7 A&R Care Ltd 9.7
    8 ABLE (Action for a Better Life)
    9 A C L Care Homes Ltd
    10 A D L plc
    11 A D R Care Homes Ltd
    12 A G E Nursing Homes Ltd 8

As you may notice, some of my observations are alphanumeric and contain numbers both in the beginning and/or the end name. I know that it is possible to get rid of numeric characters (see for instance here). Yet, I do not know how to remove only some of them. Concretely, remove the numbers contained at the end of the name and keep those in the beginning. I have tried to do so by creating a group with the numbers that I want to remove and try to use gsub. 

ratings = c("8", "8.8", "9.7")
example$new_var = with(example, gsub(ratings, " ", care_group))

However I get this warning message: 

Warning message:

In gsub(ratings, " ", care_group) :
  argument 'pattern' has length > 1 and only the first element will be used

I wonder whether it is possible to use gsub with a pattern that has a length > 1 or whether someone could propose a more efficient way to tackle with this. Many thanks in advance.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2339

Answers (1)

lmo
lmo

Reputation: 38500

Better to use an anchor and character class:

# sample of vector with various possibilities
temp <- c(" 7 A&R Care Ltd 9.7", "A C L Care Homes Ltd", "12 A G E Nursing Homes Ltd 8")

gsub(" [0-9.]+$", "", temp)

[1] " 7 A&R Care Ltd"   "A C L Care Homes Ltd"       "12 A G E Nursing Homes Ltd"

In the regular expression

  • the $ anchors the expression to the end of the text
  • the "[0-9.]+" says any sequence of numerical characters including "."

Upvotes: 1

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