R help - Mar 2013 - Extract letters from a column

Dear list:

I would like to extract three letters from first and second elements
in one column and make a new column.

For example below,
> tempdf = read.table("clipboard", header=T, sep='\t')
> tempdf
              name var1 var2    abb
1      Tom Cruiser    1    6 TomCru
2       Bread Pett    2    5 BrePet
3 Arnold Schwiezer    3    7 ArnSch
> (p1 = substr(tempdf$name, 1, 3))
[1] "Tom" "Bre" "Arn"

I was able to extract three letters from first name, however, I don't
know how to extract three letters from last name (i.e., 'Cru',
'Pet',
and 'Sch').  Can anyone give me a suggestion?  Many thanks in advance.

Best,

Steve

Dear SH,

Hmmm... what about

substr(tempdf$name, 4, 6))

?

HTH,
Jorge.-


On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:06 AM, SH <emptican@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear list:
>
> I would like to extract three letters from first and second elements
> in one column and make a new column.
>
> For example below,
>
> > tempdf = read.table("clipboard", header=T, sep='\t')
> > tempdf
>               name var1 var2    abb
> 1      Tom Cruiser    1    6 TomCru
> 2       Bread Pett    2    5 BrePet
> 3 Arnold Schwiezer    3    7 ArnSch
> > (p1 = substr(tempdf$name, 1, 3))
> [1] "Tom" "Bre" "Arn"
>
> I was able to extract three letters from first name, however, I don't
> know how to extract three letters from last name (i.e., 'Cru',
'Pet',
> and 'Sch').  Can anyone give me a suggestion?  Many thanks in
advance.
>
> Best,
>
> Steve
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Dear Jorge,

I gave me this result (below) since it defines starting from the forth
letter and ending 6th letter from the first element.
> substr(tempdf$name, 4, 6)
[1] " Cr" "ad " "old"

I would like to have letters from first and second elements if possible.

Thanks for replying,

Steve


On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 10:10 AM, Jorge I Velez
<jorgeivanvelez at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear SH,
>
> Hmmm... what about
>
> substr(tempdf$name, 4, 6))
>
> ?
>
> HTH,
> Jorge.-
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:06 AM, SH <emptican at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear list:
>>
>> I would like to extract three letters from first and second elements
>> in one column and make a new column.
>>
>> For example below,
>>
>> > tempdf = read.table("clipboard", header=T,
sep='\t')
>> > tempdf
>>               name var1 var2    abb
>> 1      Tom Cruiser    1    6 TomCru
>> 2       Bread Pett    2    5 BrePet
>> 3 Arnold Schwiezer    3    7 ArnSch
>> > (p1 = substr(tempdf$name, 1, 3))
>> [1] "Tom" "Bre" "Arn"
>>
>> I was able to extract three letters from first name, however, I
don't
>> know how to extract three letters from last name (i.e., 'Cru',
'Pet',
>> and 'Sch').  Can anyone give me a suggestion?  Many thanks in
advance.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Steve
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>