R help - Jan 2009 - sub question

Hello R users,

I have a string, for example:
x <- "\t\tabc\t def"

This string can contain any number of tabulations. I want to replace each
tabulation of the begining of the string by the same number of space:
"  abc\t def"

I'm trying to do this with gsub :
> gsub("\t", " ", x) # replace every \t
[1] "  abc  def"
> sub("^\t", " ", x) # replace only the first \t
[1] " \tabc\t def"
> sub("^\t*", " ", x) # replace all beginning \t, but
only one space
[1] " abc\t def"

How can I do this ?

Thank you very much.

david

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David Hajage wrote:
> Hello R users,
>
> I have a string, for example:
> x <- "\t\tabc\t def"
>
> This string can contain any number of tabulations. I want to replace each
> tabulation of the begining of the string by the same number of space:
> "  abc\t def"
>
> I'm trying to do this with gsub :
>   
>> gsub("\t", " ", x) # replace every \t
>>     
> [1] "  abc  def"
>   
>> sub("^\t", " ", x) # replace only the first \t
>>     
> [1] " \tabc\t def"
>   
>> sub("^\t*", " ", x) # replace all beginning \t, but
only one space
>>     
> [1] " abc\t def"
>
> How can I do this ?
>
>   
there may be better solutions, but this should do:

strings = c('pure', '\t<- 1 removed', '\t\t<- 2
removed, 1 left ->\t')
gsub('\t|(*COMMIT)(*FAIL)', ' ', strings, perl=TRUE)
# "pure" " <- 1 removed" "  <- 2 removed, 1 left
->\t"

vQ