R help - Dec 2004 - Removing trailing spaces

Some years ago when I used S-PLUS, I seem to remember, there was a
discussion about a simple method of removing trailing spaces from
vector elements.  I'd be fairly sure the same would work in R, but I
can't find any mention of anything like it in the R archives or with
help.search().

There are ways I could do it with substring(), but I seem to remember
there was something more elegant.  I can find the strip function in
the clim.pact package, but that trims everything after the first space
which is not useful in this case.

Someone please refresh my memory.

TIA

-- 
Patrick Connolly
HortResearch
Mt Albert
Auckland
New Zealand 
Ph: +64-9 815 4200 x 7188
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
I have the world`s largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all
the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you`ve seen it.  ---Steven Wright 
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Use regular expressions: ?regexpr

e.g. if myvec is your original vector of strings

notrlblanks<-sub('[[:blank:]]+?','',myvec)


-- Bert Gunter
Genentech Non-Clinical Statistics
South San Francisco, CA
 
"The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning
process."  - George E. P. Box
 
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch 
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of 
> Patrick Connolly
> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 2:39 PM
> To: R-help
> Subject: [R] Removing trailing spaces
> 
> Some years ago when I used S-PLUS, I seem to remember, there was a
> discussion about a simple method of removing trailing spaces from
> vector elements.  I'd be fairly sure the same would work in R, but I
> can't find any mention of anything like it in the R archives or with
> help.search().
> 
> There are ways I could do it with substring(), but I seem to remember
> there was something more elegant.  I can find the strip function in
> the clim.pact package, but that trims everything after the first space
> which is not useful in this case.
> 
> Someone please refresh my memory.
> 
> TIA
> 
> -- 
> Patrick Connolly
> HortResearch
> Mt Albert
> Auckland
> New Zealand 
> Ph: +64-9 815 4200 x 7188
> ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
> ~.~.~.~.~
> I have the world`s largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all
> the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you`ve seen it.  
> ---Steven Wright 
> ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
> ~.~.~.~.~
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide! 
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>

On Wed, 2004-12-22 at 11:38 +1300, Patrick Connolly
wrote:
> Some years ago when I used S-PLUS, I seem to remember, there was a
> discussion about a simple method of removing trailing spaces from
> vector elements.  I'd be fairly sure the same would work in R, but I
> can't find any mention of anything like it in the R archives or with
> help.search().
> 
> There are ways I could do it with substring(), but I seem to remember
> there was something more elegant.  I can find the strip function in
> the clim.pact package, but that trims everything after the first space
> which is not useful in this case.
> 
> Someone please refresh my memory.
> 
> TIA
See the final examples in ?sub

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

I generally use sub like so sub(" *$","",vector)


 > x <- c("this one   ","and that one ","plus
this")
 > sub(" *$","",x)
[1] "this one"     "and that one" "plus this"
 >

Tom

Patrick Connolly wrote:
> Some years ago when I used S-PLUS, I seem to remember, there was a
> discussion about a simple method of removing trailing spaces from
> vector elements.  I'd be fairly sure the same would work in R, but I
> can't find any mention of anything like it in the R archives or with
> help.search().
> 
> There are ways I could do it with substring(), but I seem to remember
> there was something more elegant.  I can find the strip function in
> the clim.pact package, but that trims everything after the first space
> which is not useful in this case.
> 
> Someone please refresh my memory.
> 
> TIA
> 

-- 
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Patrick Connolly <p.connolly at hortresearch.co.nz> writes:
> Some years ago when I used S-PLUS, I seem to remember, there was a
> discussion about a simple method of removing trailing spaces from
> vector elements.  I'd be fairly sure the same would work in R, but I
> can't find any mention of anything like it in the R archives or with
> help.search().
> 
> There are ways I could do it with substring(), but I seem to remember
> there was something more elegant.  I can find the strip function in
> the clim.pact package, but that trims everything after the first space
> which is not useful in this case.
> 
> Someone please refresh my memory.
Like this?
> x <- c("a b ", "dfhskf   ", "FGF",
"IUOI UOUO UOUO  ")
> sub(" *$", "", x)
[1] "a b"            "dfhskf"         "FGF"       
"IUOI UOUO UOUO"


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907